


Holding on to Alright

by daroos



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Kink Meme, Moving On, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-27
Updated: 2012-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-17 03:13:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/547020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daroos/pseuds/daroos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is a story about recovering from loss, finding love in strange places, and realizing that these messed up people you live with are actually your family.  This is the story of how Natasha Romanov overcame her fears, how Clint Barton realized he probably did need therapy, how Darcy Lewis got the most awesome job off the planet, and everything that happened in between.  Rough estimates put this at 50% fluff, 30% humor 20% introspection.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding on to Alright

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as me filling my own prompt on the Avengers kink meme because... well, because nobody else was going to. It started out as a story about friendship between two really damaged people, and it ended up being a bit about love, a bit about growth, and a bit about loss. A thousand thankyous to Meinterrupted who beta’ed for me and was an absolute champ through the middle when I hadn’t been quite sure what tense I was writing in. Without her, this would be significantly less grammatically correct and readable.
> 
> If I missed a tag or anything else, please let me know!

Not long after the debacle with Loki was wrapped up, funerals were attended and reports finalized, Clint received a call from of all people, Pepper Potts. He'd never met Ms. Potts, but having dealt with Tony Stark in some capacities he appreciated that she must have magic powers, or be some sort of mutant, or be somehow related to Phil Coulson, to handle Stark as well and thoroughly as she did. That garnered his respect.

"Ms. Potts - to what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked upon answering her call. He's not sure quite how the StarkPhone answers calls as it's just a watch-battery sized device which adheres with a remarkable tenacity to the underside of his tragus, perpetually living just inside his ear. The only way he knew who was calling was through the uplink the thing initiated to interface with his watch shortly after he had stuck it on. This raised more than a few questions about the wisdom of encouraging Stark and SHIELD R&D to combine forces for field tests, but it was the first phone he'd ever had to survive more than a month without a cracked screen, so he was willing to hold off on asking those questions. 

"Specialist Barton." It was just his name, but it was also a greeting, and it was said with warmth and pleasure and an earthy sort of amusement. "It's wonderful to finally get the chance to talk with you. I had heard you might be interested moving forward from your position at SHIELD." Clint raised his eyebrows to the sky as though to ask 'how would you know'. "I have a job proposal for you,” Potts finished. Clint remained silent, waiting for her to continue. "The Tower could use a director of security versed in... extra-ordinary threats, and you might be the right person for the job." Clint raised an eyebrow and frowned in consideration. "Specialist?" It was so rare that civilians got the difference between Agents and Specialists. Now that he was once again the latter...

Deep down, Clint had known his time at SHIELD was over. Fury could never trust that Loki's influence was truly purged from his system, and though his exposure had been minimal during the Battle of New York, it had been enough to effectively end his use in undercover work.

Fury gave him his _we need to have a serious talk, son_ look, which meant Clint wished he’d escaped the conversation before it had even begun. "We'd still like access to your talent set, Barton, but you'll have other things keeping you busy from now on." Translation: Fury wanted a contract assassin but he should look at Avenging as his full time gig. 

Clint didn't like to think of himself as an anxious guy, but he was pragmatic. Outside of the heat and grief of battle, he couldn't imagine the disparate team wanting to be involved with him - the brainfucked traitor. Handing his resignation to SHIELD as a full agent had its benefits. One was blowing off what would probably have been months or years of mandatory psych and evals.

"Yes?" His thoughts returned to his current, unexpected conversation. Potts sounded flustered, probably used to the constant, unedited wall of sound that was Tony Stark.

"Are you interested?" She asked.

"I should have access to the Tower specs. I'll send a rough project proposal by the end of the week."

He could imagine Potts nodding along. "I look forward to working with you,” she said warmly.

The incestuous relationship between Stark Industries and SHIELD meant he could work in the Tower while ‘consulting’ with SHIELD, and of course, Avenging when need be. It was perfect, really, offering the sanctuary of work near people he trusted doing something he was good at.

"I'm so glad you agree," Pepper replied when he voiced that thought at their next meeting, sounding as though she was genuinely delighted.

Security was something he was familiar with. He would always be a field agent at heart, but the steady passage of time had required he pass into a different specialty than hiding in blinds for weeks waiting for a target. He had run the security for the Tesseract research unit for nearly a year, and though he was a hands-off sort of boss, his plans and forethought were credited with the minimal loss of life when the compound inevitably collapsed into the ground. More importantly, years in the circus had showed Clint how to run a show within a show - how to fit his needs into the larger needs of a group, space, and event. Stark was an event unto himself.

Stark looked at him, surprised, the first time they crossed paths. Clint had already been working within the Tower for close to two weeks, learning the weaknesses and entry points from the ground up. "What are you doing here?" Stark asked, tiny cup of espresso in one hand and something metal, and heavy in the other, obviously on the way from one place to another. His goatee lent him a perpetually surprised look which Clint found amusing. "Did I invite you here to stay, because I thought that was just Bruce. And Steve - you would not believe the place SHIELD had him living in. But he's still doing the road warrior shtick, so I thought it was just Bruce."

"I work here," Clint replied, part amusement, part rueful reproach. And I live here, now, went unsaid. Clint had been shown the level he'd designed specifically FOR him. He'd taken one look, shook his head, and picked out a space much more his size.

"Since when?" Stark asked, eyebrows maneuvering through a series of expressions. "You know what? Never mind. Welcome to the Tower!" Stark was gone as quickly as he had appeared, slipping around a corner. 

Pepper offered him one of the floors toward the top of the Tower - said Stark had a layout designed for him - but Clint had to refuse. "It's too much," he said, critical eyes sweeping around the ostentatious space. He's certain that Stark would refute it. Say, "It's nothing big," or make fun of his tin-can SHIELD quarters. He would ride roughshod over Clint's objections. Potts just looked at him, a placid gaze bereft of judgment. "I don't want this." He frowned at the palatial kitchen.

"Tony doesn't know the meaning of 'too much,'" she said with the quirk of a smile, "but he's not in charge of your relocation. Just let me know what you would prefer and we'll direct the contractors to your renovation specs."

"We should keep the shooting gallery." Clint gave Potts a sidelong look, attempting to determine if he was asking too much. She gave a small nod of approval and smiled at him once again, and that small gesture was more comforting than he would have liked to admit.

"Certainly. I have to be going but let JARVIS or Stephanie-" the cute secretary at the security offices, "-know if you have any questions."

Clint had a lot to do and he wasn't in a particular hurry to move in, so he spent a few weeks crashing on couches throughout the recently finished offices and labs, and nesting on top of book cases in the opulently elegant library.

"We are not doing this again." Natasha said when she found him thumbing through a well-worn paperback in a nest atop a bookshelf. He was rather proud of the nest - he scavenged packing foam and this awesome industrial strength bubble wrap from the loading docks, and an assortment of pillow like items to make a surprisingly comfortable sleep spot. He was nearly certain that if it wasn't on the top of bookshelves which were two stories high in a relatively public area, Natasha would approve.

He looked at her, a little lost, a little pleading, and patted the bubble wrap beside him. She climbed up to his nest and fitted in next to him, resting her head back over the swell of his bicep. He felt his fingers going to sleep and he was relatively sure it was a tactical play on her part. "Find a place by the end of the week or I'm burning your crossbow."

"Ha. Ha. It's a non-flammable composite." He retorted, knowing he was poking the bear, knowing he should have gotten an apartment worked out weeks ago.

He couldn’t see it, but he could _feel_ the gaze leveled at him. "Do you seriously doubt my pyromania?" she asked in the dead-level way that means she was both mocking him and slightly offended.

He wanted a place with a view, with easy access to the air ducts, elevator and shafts, and external structure. He needed a place big enough for a bed. He’d lived in some truly dinky places - he could comfortably live in the closet of the apartment he had been shown. He enjoyed wide open spaces when awake but for sleeping he craved the cloistered feeling of a bunk or a nest.

"JARVIS - check the office space and unclaimed lab and residential spaces against my residential specs."

"Sir," JARVIS' modulated voice replied, less well rendered from his office speakers. "72% specification match found currently. Renovations can raise concordance to 93%. External access would be limited to a route through a hangar deck and it is two floors below specified preferences."

"Show it to me." Clint inspected the office critically and frowned. "This will do. Can you handle the contractor orders?" he asked JARVIS.

"Indeed, Sir."

Contrary to JARVIS, Tony Stark was a terrible person to work with, professionally. He was brash, demanding, overconfident and condescending. Tony Stark was also a man who appreciated an elegant design, and Clint appreciated invisible surveillance, so they had a point of agreement upon which to build.

The R&D levels in the Tower were sandwiched around the level Clint's quarters were on. Stark's workshop was topmost in the R&D block, accessible only through the executive elevator with either a special key code or a special accord with JARVIS. Clint had access codes for the lab because he was head of security, and he retained them simply because he had never used them or given Stark any reason to revoke them. He made regular runs at the security, though, starting with simple physical access methods (carving his way through the windows, air-duct and elevator shaft access) and ramping up to the most advanced black-market hacking techniques.

"You know it's nothing personal, right JARVIS?"

"Indeed, Sir," JARVIS answered. "Each of your mocked assaults provides inoculation in my learning matrix against similar incursions in the future. The exercises are stimulating."

"Good. 'Cause I wouldn't want you to think I had something against you. Or Stark."

"I would not read malice into actions which are to our benefit."

"Great." Clint paused. "Do you think you could call these guys off then?"

"I will do my best. They can sometimes fall into recursive defense loops which are difficult to break." Butterfingers and U were threatening Clint with a blowtorch and a band saw attachment respectively while DUM-E swung his arm in a wild, dizzying circle. Abruptly DUM-E stopped mid-swing, claw raised in a threatening pose.

Butterfingers and U whirred, swiveling their optics around the lab once before returning to their charging stations. DUM-E spun one final slow circle and nosed curiously up to Clint. Closing his claw, he reached out towards Clint in a slow, deliberate manner. The bot stopped before he could touch Clint, and shrugging, Clint brought up his fist and bumped it on the pursed claw.

DUM-E jerked back, apparently startled. He opened and closed his claw twice, experimentally and presented it to Clint once again for a fist bump which Clint obliged him in.

"It's just for practice, little guy." Clint ran his palm over the claw and pulled his rope down from the ceiling, a practiced flick disengaging his knot at the top. DUM-E backed up at the rattling fall of the rope, and nosed back in curious, getting a tread stuck.

"Man, did Stark build 'getting into shit by being too damned curious' into his bots?"

"Is Sir initiating a formal inquiry into DUM-E’s code?" JARVIS asked, sounding mischievous.  
\--  
Clint liked Bruce. Not with the same fondness and loyalty which he felt for Natasha, but he respected the man's mind and conviction. He also appreciated Bruce's quiet, contemplative nature, so at odds with the Hulk inside. The guy was a consummate nerd, but the all right kind of nerd. He loved science and interesting things, and would, when asked, explain how and why all sorts of things worked with the animated wonder of a six year old explaining his Lego spaceship. He used the salt and pepper shakers, and cereal boxes, and little rows of apple slices off of his plate to explain mitochondria and smooth muscle cell energy utilization, after Clint asked a simple question about glucose intake and workouts. Unlike Stark, he would explain vocabulary, and didn't assume Clint was a dumb grunt when not in costume.

Bruce and Clint had worked out a complex language of looks, eye and eyebrow gestures, forehead wrinkles and frowny faces which was the only way they, as two non-morning-people survived until caffeine and breakfast foods kicked in. Bruce often had difficulty telling you if it WAS morning without the aid of both timepieces and a window.

Bruce was engrossed in assembling some equipment. It was for some experiment to do with radiation, or something to do with the rows of dishes filled with off-colored medical-grade gelatin. It looked something like the bastard child of a radar gun and a miniaturized shark cage. Clint tried to decide if he wanted to know what it was – looked to Bruce and almost began asking when Bruce met his questioning look. He quirked an eyebrow, clearly asking ‘do you really want to know what this is? Because the only way I know to tell you is in Detail’. Clint gave a minute shake of his head, which prompted Bruce to flash him one of his rather contrite, self-deprecating smiles which communicated 'That's good because talking right now would kind of derail me and this is the tricky part and I don't think you really would care that much anyway', before returning to welding. Nice and quiet. 

Clint was flipping through emergency scenarios compiled by the Avengers, ranging everywhere from hostile corporate takeover (Potts), to an attempt to use exotic forms of radiation to melt the steel frame of the building (Stark), to alien invasion from another dimension, or across space, or something (that had already happened so it was always a good idea to be ready), to HYDRA resurgence (Steve), to the Hulk (Bruce). There were dossiers on major terrorist groups and extra-ordinary individuals to his left side for later consideration - a gift from SHIELD. Clint wasn’t really sure what he could do about most of those things, aside from the radiation, which Bruce had already helped him calibrate sensors for. Nazis, he was fairly sure he could deal with, unless they were super-powered Nazis from space, AKA HYDRA. Super powered Nazis from space seemed like a very real possibility given their luck lately. 

He took up residence in an office-turned-quarters near the experimental prototype floor. He rightly assumed that the biggest threat to the Tower’s structural stability would likely come from Stark (or Bruce), and if an evacuation needed to take place, being near the epicenter of chaos would probably be advantageous, unless he was blown up in the testing. Bruce gave him a hard time for choosing the loudest, hardest to get to, most exposed location in the entire tower for his quarters, but Clint liked the height, the corner-office windows, and the almost cramped nook that was his alone. 

Natasha would sometimes scale her way to his quarters at night and slip in through his balcony. She would make enough noise to let him know it was her – the click of her boots on the tiled floor, the swish-swish of the heavy fabric of her pants as her inner thighs brushed together. She would spoon up behind him (always the big spoon) and curl an arm protectively about his mid-section, as though he were a giant teddy bear. Invariably her palm would settle comfortably over the combat knife on his belt, or where a knife would be, and her soft breathing at his neck would tell him she had fallen asleep.

When he’d decided not to carry out the hit on Natasha, Fury had accused him of being soft, of falling for the Black Widow’s charms, and of maybe being in love with her – wanting what all men who hadn’t seen her true nature wanted from her. Once you knew Natasha, the idea of dominating her, sexually or otherwise, was laughable. When she first started working for SHIELD this was because she was this shell of a complete person. It would have been like trying to claim deep space. Later it was because she had discovered who she really was, and that woman did nothing against her will. He was fascinated by her, and he felt empathy for her, but he never wanted to peel off the cat suit and have his way; they were partners. Conversely, she had never shown an interest, and Clint preferred his partners boisterously enthusiastic. When sex was part of business, simple friendships could become so much more meaningful.

Those nights they would both sleep well, confident that one or the other of them would wake if something were to happen. Those nights there was someone to shake you out of nightmares when they came. If Stark thought something was going on between them, he didn’t say anything. Clint secretly thought he was more than a bit scared of Natasha after seeing her choke out a Morlock with her thighs. The others were smart enough, or polite enough, not to comment.

Some nights when alone, Clint was woken by whatever it was Loki planted inside of him, floating back up through his soul like a corpse in the river. Some nights he’s woken by that need to serve, by a deep empathy with that childish god-beast, and by the contentment that accompanied those needs and feelings. He vomited sometimes, trying to get that not-him out. Sometimes he just shook in bed, wanting to cry, or cry out, but mostly just digging grooves into his flesh with blunt fingernails. Natasha kept those nights away. Her solid weight reminded him that for all the terrible things he’s done, and probably would do in the future, he’d done some good things too. For all that he was filled with rage and disgust now, it felt so good at the time. It felt like morphine for the soul, letting himself get squashed down by the irresistible god-powers and going on a violent, calculated string of felonies. He told Natasha this one night when he woke her with his shaking.

“The definition of rape precludes you having ‘let’ Loki do anything to you. You had no choice and it’s Not Your Fault.” Clint wasn’t sure how he felt about being told he’d been raped, let alone mind-raped. He couldn’t find a better thing to call it, so he left that thought alone, put it out of his mind and disassociated like the expert he was. Somehow it didn’t make him feel better to know he didn’t let anybody do anything to him – that he’d just been flat-out forced and he had had as much control as a marionette.

For her part, Natasha used him as a crutch with Bruce. He hadn’t seen her in a room alone with Bruce since the helicarrier incident, and she tended to stick to the perimeter when Bruce was nearby, quick glances telling him that she was calculating escape routes. He’d like to kid himself and say he’d never let the Hulk hurt her, but he was not in the habit of self-delusion, and he knew he wouldn’t be much more than a sneeze-rag for the Hulk if he got into a smashing mood. Bruce knew he frightened her badly, more than once and so he didn’t joke around about the Other Guy when she was in earshot. He rarely did that to begin with, but Clint recognized it as a sort of pressure release and systematic desensitization training rolled into self-recrimination, so he didn’t discourage it. When he was around Natasha, Bruce didn’t move quickly. He used his shy, hesitant smile to good effect. He was the picture of a nerd trying to flirt with a woman completely out of his league. Natasha’s irresistible attraction to things that scared the sense out of her meant it was actually sort of working, if you squinted and tilted your head. Bruce was a squinty head-tilter.

Clint preferred narrowing his eyes critically and lining up shots to either squinting or head-tilting. He knew every juncture of the Tower within two weeks of taking the job, even though it was still under heavy construction (reconstruction). He worked his way through the air ducts (installing sensors and countermeasures the whole way), within a month, even with getting distracted with a SHIELD investigation of Genosha. He worked up sight lines from other buildings by six weeks in and installed some basic shielding to prevent long-range assassination attempts. 

“Do you think she’d go for it?” Bruce asked in his general direction. He did so in a conversational tone of voice from the middle of the prototype floor, quite a distance from Clint, confident in the other man’s sometimes alarming hearing. 

“Hm?” Clint grunted, kipping through another few pull-ups. He hadn’t been paying attention, if they had been having a conversation. He was fairly sure they hadn’t been; ninety percent at least.

“I was thinking of asking Natasha to dinner.” Bruce said, studiously not looking at the other man.

Clint grunted in surprise, swinging his legs to the balcony railing he was using as a pull-up bar before swinging himself up to sit on it to get a clear look at Bruce. “You know what she does for a living, right?” he asked amused and dubious.

“I know, I know. But that’s work. I wouldn’t have to inject her with mutagens just because I’m a mad scientist. Unless there’s a secret superhero rule about this kind of thing.” Bruce frowned as though he might actually be considering that there are rules. He’s squinting and head-tilting again though, “Black Widow is a pretty obvious warn-off…”

Clint rolled his eyes and his neck and dropped to the deck to start a series of polymeric lunges.

“She’s just- I feel like we had something. Or like we could have something, ya know?”

“You scare the crap out of her – that’s something you guys have.” Perhaps that was harsh, Clint thought, remembering Natasha’s wide-eyed sidelong glance from when she realizes the Hulk is loose, and so far beyond something she could ever control. Bruce’s face fell from its boyish hopefulness.

“It was stupid.” He said flatly.

Clint shrugged. “Maybe.”

It was a moot point – Natasha was out on assignment for SHIELD for nearly a month and someone tried to end the world with magnets and sound waves in a way that Clint frankly didn't understand. It ended when he shot the right person, and thankfully the city wasn’t badly damaged and the body count was low. He’s asked to consult on base security for a new SHIELD outpost in northern Africa and was gone for what seemed like months but was actually a week or two, give or take jet lag. When he returned it was the middle of the night. JARVIS let him in and activated running lights to his bedroom, where he found Natasha, curled around his pillow. He wondered when this became their thing, and he wondered if it’s creepy, or co-dependent, and not for the first time, he wondered if he should have agreed to the SHIELD mandated counseling sessions.

He would have liked to say he could tell the moment that she went from asleep to awake, but she’s the best at what she does, and suddenly she was awake and alert and entirely focused on him.

“It’s just me.” He said, sounding rougher than he expected after what felt like years of military-class flights.

She made a harrumph of recognition and returned to her former boneless sprawl. He stowed his gear and took his time showering and working the knots of travel out of his spine. He nudged her over and claimed a pillow from her formidable grasp. She tucked herself around him, hand on his hip where a knife would be. She was gone in the morning (closer to mid-day) when he woke, but that was not a surprise. He visited the kitchen for coffee (Tony finally got JARVIS wired into the espresso machine to produce some really exceptional stuff since Potts isn't acting as his personal valet any longer) before walking the beat. There were close to 7 miles of corridors in the Tower, but only about 2 miles of those were high-traffic. He paced them slowly, looking for any changes since his departure. 

Stark didn’t seem surprised when he appeared in the penthouse and walked the perimeter of the top floor, gazing down the sides of the building on the overlook, unafraid of the drop. Stark kept up a constant chatter about the inanities of a life of science and leisure and crime-fighting. He mentally recorded it, but didn't bother paying it any more attention than if someone had left on the radio in their cubicle. Potts was away on business, and he could tell that Tony was more than a bit attention starved. Clint left him to his own devices so as not to become a conversational whipping boy.

The labs were humming with activity mid-day. Scientists tend towards strange hours and schedules, but somehow, to most of them, lunch is a sacred activity, and noon is a time everyone is in at work, in the lunch room. There were several small tables full of scientists eating a frightening variety of foods, most of them talking in a relaxed or excited manner about science or their children. Bruce was sitting with an engineering intern, talking earnestly about… something, but spared an inscrutable glance for Clint, not missing a conversational beat.

Clint let Bruce corner him in the hall. “If you and Natasha were involved, you could have just told me.” Bruce told him, looking as angry as Clint had ever seen him outside of combat, but also hurt, and even deeper than that, disappointed.

Clint narrowed his eyes, confused. “Excuse me?”

Bruce studied him, finally breaking eye contact to pull at his cuticle. “I was testing some stuff in the hangar this morning and saw her come out of your room.” He paused, looking tragic and sad. Clint briefly wondered when he wandered into a teen drama. Bruce was possibly the only person in the Tower who hadn't realized that Clint and Natasha might be an item. They weren't, but the gossip mill ran strong in their little skyscraper world. “Never mind. It’s stupid.” In one calculated instant, Clint reached out to stop Bruce from brushing by him down the hallway.

A firm hand on Bruce’s upper arm spun him neatly back to face Clint. He saw the transition when Bruce had gone on from sad to angry once more. “It’s not like that – we’re not like that.” Bruce looked as though he wanted to deny it, but was forcing the words back down his own throat, giving Clint a chance to explain and giving himself a spectacularly sullen look. “I was there for her during some pretty hairy reprogramming. She was there for me after Loki’s mind-fuck.”

“I get it, the bond of combat, all that-“

“Would you just listen to me?” Clint unconsciously tightened his grip on Bruce’s upper arm. “Sometimes being alone can become like a disease. The only thing that helps it is someone who has seen the darkest, most craven parts of you and will still be there for you. That is all we are, and all I ever intend us to be: friends.” Clint forced his hand open, realizing that Bruce’s arm under his grip was white from the force. “Sometimes you just need a goddamned hug. Natasha is someone worth earning a hug from,” Clint said, and he couldn’t really believe he had said that with a straight face, but it was so true it kind of hurt. He crossed his arms protectively over his chest and Bruce mirrored the gesture. Bruce pinned him with one of his squinty, thoughtful looks, no longer angry. Clint had a moment of personal panic, wondering if Bruce was planning some aggressive hug therapy but he nodded to himself and turned away. 

In the time before the Avengers - when life had seemed simple in the way only a super-secret government'ish assassin spy's life can be simple - he might have deflected and redirected with humor and words and more humor. Since Loki, he had felt hollowed out and bereft of language. Taking comfort in the company of people who didn't know him and didn't know any better he had managed to hide it even from himself. He realized that that was the first honest thought to burst through his lips in some weeks.

Clint breathed out a sigh of relief. He then wondered if he should warn Natasha that overtures from the Hulk’s alter-ego were imminent. Natasha had always appreciated intel in the past, so he decided it was only fair to warn her. “So you’re aware, Doctor Banner may be initiating romantic overtures in the near future.” He began without preamble when his call connected through to her.

He could almost hear her smirk. “Really,” she stated, almost a question. “What got him in gear?” She asked dryly.

“He may have thought we were involved.” He can hear the amused, very un-ladylike snort from Natasha. “I just set him straight.”

“Interesting.” He could practically hear her calculating look. “Thanks for the warning.” They were both silent for a long stretch. “Would you like to spar some time today?”

“I think I can fit you in my schedule,” Clint replied easily.

Sparring with the Black Widow was like sparring with a Kung-fu eel. Clint disliked in-your-face combat conditions – that was why he had become a sniper – but he recognized the need for practice and preparedness. Even when he scored a hit on her, Natasha would already be swinging around in a completely unexpected direction, hitting him in the back of the head. 

Grappling was, if possible, worse. She could kick him in the kidneys from a choke hold, she flipped him to the mat with an ease borne of ridiculous quantities of leg strength and hips which she used with a powerful finesse. She had a disconcerting habit of limpeting onto his back, one leg wrapped around his front, through his crotch for the combined hit of pulling him off balance and digging painfully into his groin, while digging a knee into a kidney and wrapping a forearm around his neck. 

“You’re not very good at this, Clint,” she’d commented the first time she had choked him out in that way, helping him upright and offering a bottle of water. She was all contempt for the soft Americans, and a tangled ball of insecurities and rage, and Clint was watching over her recovery from the shot that had allowed him to take her in peacefully. He coughed. “There’s a reason I prefer keeping my enemies to a distance.” His voice sounded strained. Natasha laughed with a hint of genuine humor; the first time he heard anything but contempt in the noise. 

“Don’t worry – we’ll get you into shape.” That had been early in their relationship, long before the Avengers initiative was whispered about. It was very soon after Natasha was brought in still dealing with… everything. He sensed that she needed a project, and that he could be that project. He figured that he could always be in better shape, or better trained. Natasha had not been a gentle teacher, but she was imminently effective.

He’d improved a lot in those early days, as had Natasha. She knew every injury and every inch of mileage on his high-mileage body. She made good use of that, retreating to his right where an old muscle strain had permanently shortened his flexibility, and boxing him soundly over a scar in his lower torso. He knew she enjoyed kicking the crap out of him – she had told him more than once, but they wore body armor and silly head-injury-prevention helmets that Stark had designed especially for the super crowd, so the damage would be minimal.

“What do you think Bruce’s play is?” She asked when she had just finished kicking him in the head.

Clint tried to shake it off, but found himself on the mat, breathing heavily instead. “Play?” Natasha pinned him with a pointed look which he found difficult to interpret. “I think he just wants to go on a date. Maybe someone has finally realized what a smart, beautiful woman you are.” She nudged him in the ribs in a rough but friendly gesture. “God knows I never did.” That made her smile. “Bruce is one of the smartest guys I know – maybe the smartest – but he’s severely lacking in skills with women. I’d take him at face value.”

Natasha frowned at him, thoughtful. “He asked me to his place for dinner.”

“He lives on the 14th floor,” Clint returned. He lived on the 78th. The idea that they lived in the same building and often ate breakfast in the same room, and yet could ask each other to dinner in their apartments for a date struck him as ridiculous. “That was really quick,” he added.

Natasha shrugged. “He caught me coming down here. He was… Sweet,” she finally decided on the proper word.

“Will you be okay?” Clint asked, levering himself off the floor. Natasha gave him a sidelong glance, part ‘I can’t believe you asked that’ and part, ‘I’m not sure so I don’t want to answer that’. “I’m only a call away if anything happens – he doesn’t even have to know you activated your communicator.”

“That’s charming, but I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she replied. The unspoken statement was that if it all went to hell there was little Clint could do for her besides die valiantly, or perhaps serve as a decoy briefly. “Seriously, he’s under control.”

Clint examined her face, her body carefully for the thrum of anxiety, tension, or a crease of fear around her eyes. He found those traces but he also saw a steely determination to face her fear.  
\--  
“Hey Hawk-man.” Stark sauntered his way into Clint’s aerie, a large bowl of popcorn and a six pack of some sort of fancy beer in his hands. Clint didn’t rise to the bait, merely quirking an eyebrow at his sometimes-boss. “Given the hilarious nature of the possible romantic interlude going down just a few floors below us, it seemed appropriate that we eavesdrop like the little old ladies we are.” Stark dropped the food and drink on his coffee table and began wiring a few things he pulled out of the ceiling into Clint’s flat screen. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” He asked, settling down comfortably on the only couch in the room, the arc reactor in his chest glowing steadily through his t-shirt. Clint shook his head, ruefully and settled down, popping a beer.

Tony unfolded a soft keyboard on his belly and typed a few lines, pulling up the security feeds in Bruce’s quarters. Bruce appeared to be almost frantically clearing up, shoving things under couch cushions and stuffing every errant dish into the sink under a growing mound of bubbles. “For a squishy lab kind of guy he’s really a slob.” There were soft puffs of steam coming from his kitchenette oven periodically, and a rice cooker which looked old enough to have come from Mao-era China was burbling away in the final stage of cooking. 

There was a knock at the door and Bruce greeted Natasha with a very continental double-cheek-kiss and invited her to fix herself a drink at a tiny bar he'd set up just moments earlier. Clint knew that she knew that he knew when, after she fixed herself a glass of something potent looking, she glanced just once, towards the camera feed and smirked. Bruce fussed over the oven and what looked like a whole fish billowing steam, so he didn't notice.

Natasha leaned a hip on a counter which gave her access to the door via a roll backwards over said counter and chatted casually with Bruce, gesturing with her glass. He had this adorable, incredulous look, as though he only just at that moment realized that Natasha had a wicked, filthy, brash sense of humor and he responded with something to which she laughed, seemingly in earnest. 

By evening's end Natasha wasn't relaxed but she was much less anxious. They had a few drinks, they ate a copious meal which Bruce confessed to have learned to make during his time in South America and they argued about political situations in foreign countries. Bruce impressed Natasha by saying something philosophical that would put the most dedicated Russian stoics in a kindly frame of mind. 

Natasha had the knack for pitching her voice so the pickups in the camera couldn't hear her properly, so they only got half of most of the conversation, but Stark helpfully filled in her parts in a ridiculous falsetto.

"You realize she is going to kill you after this, right?" Clint asked at one point.

Stark scoffed. "And how is she going to know, Robin Hood? Are you going to spill the beans on our little guy's night in?"

"She always knows," Clint replied, and left it at that. Stark began filling in both Bruce and Natasha's conversation after that.

Stark cleared out when they did another cheek-kiss goodnight.  
\--  
"What did you guys talk about?" Clint asked when she skipped in to tell him about the date. He wasn't sure he had ever seen her skip when not hip-deep in an op and wearing a strange woman's face.

Natasha took one look around his living room/bedroom/kitchenette with a few kernels of popcorn on the floor from their mid-dinner popcorn fight and the beer bottles shoved in the recycling chute and gave him a laughing, knowing look. "A lot about travel. He's been everywhere and spent a lot of time in some familiar former eastern block countries. He was always going on the run and I was always working, so we've had some radically different but similarly surreal experiences. Like Buenos Aires - he had a completely different impression."

"You mean he wasn't there to infiltrate the harem of a cartel leader?"

"Surprisingly, no." They were silent for a moment. "He asked me out again."

"Yeah? To somewhere other than the building you already live in?" Clint asked, bemusedly wondering if this would constitute Natasha's first experience dating a man who wasn't a mark. Clutching one of his throw pillows like a teddy she nodded. "Are you cool with that? Because you don't have to sleep with the guy just to prove you're not scared of him."

Her quick glance said, 'don't I?' while she said out loud, "I know that. Also, who said anything about sleeping with him. He's taking me on a night on the town."  
\--  
Clint watched Bruce with the intensity of an older brother watching his younger sister's first boyfriend for a slip up, if that brother had access to state-of-the-art surveillance technology and special forces training.

"You could just walk down the hall, knock on the door and come visit if you wanted." Bruce said, almost off handedly to himself while Clint was setting up a newer bug within Bruce's lab's air duct. Clint froze, checking that Bruce wasn't talking to someone else before having to accept that he has been caught. He knocked on the air vent grate and Bruce smiled to himself. "Come in." He circled a series of symbols and jotted a quick note on the corner of the board underlining, DO NOT ERASE and the date, by the time Clint had unscrewed the access panel.

"You're taking this remarkably well." Clint said slithering down onto a lab bench top which was uncharacteristically clear and clean.

"I live with Tony Stark - the man without boundaries - and Thor - the man who doesn't know what boundaries are. And after years of being followed and on the run I am kind of used to not having any privacy. You should be lucky I caught you here instead of by my quarters - it's totally pants-off-o'clock when I'm home."

"Oh, I don't know - we could just have a dudes-only pants-off party," Clint responded, surprising a bark of laughter out of the doctor.

"I think Tony's been a bad influence on you."

"You underestimate how bad I was before I ever met Stark," Clint replied, cracking a small smile.

They shared that little shard of amusement between each other for a moment. "It's sweet that you keep such a close eye on her."

Clint ran a hand through his hair, "Well, it's the least I can do. I think we both know if you hurt her she knows WAY worse things to do to you than I could even dream up. She's important to me."

"Me too. After Betty, I kind of swore off... but things have changed a lot since then. I'm glad you're keeping an eye out, for both of us." The permission went unvoiced but Clint heard it nonetheless. "Hey, can I ask you a question?"

Clint favored the doctor with a speculative look. "You can always ask."

"Will Natasha dance? I mean, would she enjoy it? It's just, I've been trying to think of-"

"Would you enjoy it?" Clint asked, caught off guard. Bruce looked oddly embarrassed.

"I got a taste for Milongas when I was in Argentina. I thought she might enjoy it."

"Natasha enjoys doing anything that involves movement," Clint replied finally. "She's good at sitting still, but she loves to move."

Bruce ducked his head, grinning to himself, "Great. That's great. You can go back to crawling through the air ducts if you want."  
\--  
"Is there a mission?" Steve asked when he ran into Clint in the hallway. He was in dark-colored clothing and carried a moderately sized tactical bag. He looked caught out.

"Unless you call taking incriminating photos of team members an op-" Clint realized his tactical error mid-sentence, "Embarrassing photos - not incriminating," he corrects quickly.

"Is this some protective-partner thing?" Steve asked, clearly trying not to be disturbed by... all of that. Steve was the only one of the other three Avengers who never questioned Clint and Natasha's relationship. As the sole individual aside from himself who had actually served in the military and worked in active combat, Clint liked to believe there was a certain undercurrent of understanding between them.

"Kind of?" Clint sounded unsure. "I also totally want the embarrassing photos. Those team PowerPoint montages don't make themselves."  
\--  
Clint arrived at the dance hall while Bruce and Natasha were at dinner, slipping in a service entrance and up to the second floor. The ballroom held an old-world charm with wood paneling and art deco wall sconces throwing light in geometric rays across the ceiling. Normally he'd be an 'in the rafters' sort of guy, but there were no rafters, and indeed, the ceiling (unlike the dance floor) was well illuminated to take advantage of the beautiful patterns of inlay - a gift from a more opulent time. This left the balcony, on which he was sure to be spotted, and the wings of the stage. Checking the lighting rigs, he climbed purposefully until he was safely ensconced in an overhead rig with aging gels and the smell of hot light bulbs. He stretched out and waited.

The room filled gradually with couples and individuals and occasionally laughing groups. The ladies tied themselves into strappy, precarious heels, and the men toed on formal-looking dress shoes. The DJ switched gradually from something like elevator music to a tango beat, and suddenly the floor was covered in couples traveling across it like motes of dust in the sepia sunlight of a bygone era. The telephoto was out when Natasha and Bruce entered. Clint had been taking photos of couples, idly, to practice his framing, and yeah, he likes photography because shut up. Bruce was in one of his button-down that made Clint secretly wonder if he was colorblind, and colored slacks that somehow matched, disabusing him of that possibility. Natasha had her hair swept back in what Clint liked to call her Ballerina Updo. She was already wearing a pair of heels which brought her nearly to Bruce's height.

They sat at one of the small tables, watching the swirling eddies of dancers make their ways purposefully around the floor, chatting casually. Bruce let his hand rest palm-up on the table. With only a flicker of hesitation, Natasha put her own in his larger one, running her fingertips lightly across his palm. The pads of their thumbs met and Oh My God, Clint thought, she's doing that hand seducing thing she told him about. The look Bruce gave her was equal parts wonder and adoration, and right then Clint knew the probability that their relationship was going to end badly was high. Natasha couldn't stay with someone who would love her without challenging her, and though the Hulk was a threat, he wasn't a challenge. Bruce Banner's besotted look spoke of an inability to say no to the woman seducing his thumb. Clint also knew that their relationship would be a joy to watch until the crash and burn, oh-god-abandon-ship, point.

The song ended and they rose together. Bruce's bearing adjusted as he walked them both to the floor from shy, clumsy scientist to something entirely new. Natasha said something that Clint thought was, "You know I don't really know how to do this," and Bruce replied in a way that made her laugh. Bruce adjusted his grip on her right hand, and settled an arm firmly along her back. Natasha very nearly melted into him, head tilted slightly down as though listening for something. 

They moved, and though Bruce wasn’t the most accomplished lead, and Natasha clearly mis-stepped often, they moved with a primal grace which Clint rarely saw them display outside of combat. The violin soared and Bruce supported Natasha in a leg sweep, ankle delicately relaxed, describing an arc. Bruce had a genuine, relaxed smile on, more than a little pleasure showing through his normally taciturn exterior. A strong beat pulsed and they fishtailed, neatly avoiding one another's feet. Natasha trapped Bruce's free foot with one of her own, which seemed to be some sort of signal, and traveled around him during a full phrase. She ornamented the movement with a sway of her foot while he simply watched, frame solid around her. The music ended and instead of the complicated and somewhat dangerous looking dips happening in some corners of the floor he simply brought her in close and dropped down ever so slightly. Natasha's free foot skimmed across the floor in a relaxed line but otherwise she was glued to the Bruce. 

Clint strongly suspected his blackmail photos will turn out looking more like glamorous beauty shots taken from slightly the wrong angle, but he couldn't bring himself to mind too much, snapping a few more of Natasha shaking her head to bring herself back to the moment, gaze entranced. Bruce didn't look any more with it than she. 

They danced another, and sat through a cha-cha, and danced a third and fourth. They weren't good enough to draw stares, but just for the fact that they were a handsome couple, they drew enough attention. They retreated to a corner of the room, talking and, if Clint knew anything about body language, flirting heavily. Natasha's back was still ramrod straight, but the muscles wrapping around her buttocks and hips were relaxed, letting her hips sway loosely. That was always a good sign with her. He took more photos of other couples dancing to get practice securing face shots in difficult lighting conditions. By the time they left Clint was more than ready to not be balancing on a metal light support, and gratefully crawled down the stage ladder. He got an odd look or two, abruptly appearing and leaving, but he was not remarked upon and he got away to the Tower in nearly no time at all.

Clint enjoyed passing through the streets of New York unremarked upon. He was of average height and a compact build, concealable beneath a light jacket and slacks, with features neither striking nor handsome, until, he was told, he smiled. He was the man on top during the invasion – only visible through the destruction he doled out and only audible to his team. Whereas Steve would occasionally get recognized – and congratulated – and Natasha was the subject of numerous fan pages on the internet, Clint went predominantly unnoticed, except by the schwarma joint they’d gone to after the fighting settled. There he got free schwarma (though he always tipped as much as the pita sandwich would have cost). That night was no different, and he slipped through the crowds, overwhelmingly thankful for the anonymity of New York.  
\--  
Clint wasn't sure when Darcy started working in the Tower. That fact alone disturbed him mildly, as he was generally informed of new access badge authorizations, but he presumed it was some loop hole she fell through between SHIELD and her former workplace collapsing. He narrowed it down to some time between when Thor returned from Asgard after securing his brother's prison sentence, and when Clint ran into her while exiting his living quarters. She wore gigantic protective goggles and was helping guide a large piece of equipment descending through the hangar's ceiling with the aid of repulsors on automatic anti-gravity mode. 

He was sliding down his quick-exit rope and she was backing up, and the collision was inevitable. They bounced off one another, Clint taking a swift step back and Darcy turning, goggles aimed at a point well above his head - perhaps expecting someone of Asgardian height - gradually falling to his face. The mouth beneath the goggles split into a toothy, jaunty grin.

"Agent!" It would have been a squeak if it hadn't had the warmth of a smile to back it up. He responded with a small, amused quirk of his own lips.

"Ms. Lewis," he replied, simply. With the protective goggles on, she looked like some kind of insect in cargo pants.

"What's going on down there?" Tony's voice echoed from the cargo port, drawing their attention to the large piece of equipment now listing by fifteen degrees or so without manual corrections. "I'm not paying you to wander off while moving a three million dollar fabricator."

"You're not paying me at all," Darcy bawled up towards the port, readjusting her gloves which doubled as the manual controls for the repulsors. As soon as the fabricator began stabilizing, Stark dropped down through the port, landing on a flat surface on the fabricator which caused the repulsors to whine and see-saw wildly in an attempt at automatic correction. He rode the equipment to the ground, shouting instructions at Darcy as they went.

Clint tugged the rope to get it to recoil and watched while they positioned the piece in a far corner of the prototype floor. Stark clambered down from his perch, brushing past Darcy to secure the machine to stabilizers in the floor of the hangar. At that moment Clint realized that Stark and Darcy were practical doubles - both in cargo pants and tank tops, goggles with a mess of dark hair spilling out and around the head straps, streaked with grease and colored fluid and in heavy work boots. He snorted a chuckle which only Darcy noticed.

"What?"

Clint, through heroic effort, didn't ask, "Do you know who your daddy is?" or "Were you raised in a single parent household?" or even, "Did Tony give you that outfit because he ruined your usual clothes?" and simply schooled his smirk into something less obvious. "Nothing."  
\--  
“I think it would be an excellent team building exercise.” Cap was following Bruce around the kitchen with an expression of earnest longing while Bruce fixed his lunch.

“You seem like you do just fine without any formal instruction.” Bruce was ducking his head in the submissive, please don’t look at me way that meant he wished he could melt into the formica if it would mean avoiding conversation.

“I’m sure I could be better _with_ some formal instruction,” Cap replied, all genuine and wheedling. “In our line of work it never hurts to be better at what we do.”

Clint looked between the scientist and the soldier, raising an eyebrow. “Are you trying to learn some real science?”

“No - parkour,” Bruce replied for Cap, blushing.

“That stuff is awesome. I tried some in the gym once and broke a finger. Coulson almost...” Clint trailed off abruptly.

Cap tried to cover for him, “You should come with us. I was going to get Bruce to show us some of what he knows.”

“What he- what?” Clint examined Bruce. He was medium height, a bit of a rangy build probably due to years of insufficient nutrition while on the run, and early deprivation. He’d put a bit of weight on around the mid-section since returning to live in the Tower, but nothing people who didn’t live with him would notice. He looked a lot healthier actually - his skin filled out with wiry muscle and a much better color than when they had first met.

"If you want to do this, we should do it right." Bruce told them, peering over his glasses. Clint found it hard to believe that the wiry scientist has anything to teach him, physically, but he was Steve’s team building excuse, so he couldn’t effect an escape. Bruce put them through a punishing core workout that left even Steve twisting gingerly into the next day. Clint couldn't remember the last time that the fibers between his ribs had hurt from overexertion without the addition of a good pummeling from a less than friendly source. It turned out that under the thin layer of soft flesh around Bruce's midsection was a core of a yogic master.

Clint caught Bruce smiling mischievously at him when he saw Clint wince, reaching for a cereal box. He sat gingerly at the table with his shredded wheat and Bruce huffed out a laugh. "A bit more hard-core than you were expecting?" He asked, nose buried in his coffee mug. Clint suspected he did this to keep from being obvious in his mirth.

Clint huffed his own snort of a laugh, wincing. "To tell the truth I never imagined you had that in you. You know how Tony is about training. I figured, you know... science nerds."

"The importance of the mind/body connection is constantly made obvious to me through the Other Guy. You also need crazy core strength for all the parkour - running and jumping off of things."

"Huh," Clint huffed, digging into his cereal with determination.

"I did have to evade extraction teams for like, four years, too. There's only so much advantage good planning can give you." He got a far-off look as though remembering a particularly harrowing chase. "I found a gym, by the way. It's in the New York Circus Arts Academy basement. NYCAA." Bruce made it sound like 'Nick-yaah' which for some reason elicited a small smile from Clint. "We can use it tomorrow night provided nothing comes up."

For once, nothing came up.

Clint rarely got the chance to use an actual gymnasium while in the circus. The dustbowl's tour circuit was worn down and antiquated in a lot of ways. He and his brother lived in a little tent trailer and practiced on portable mats, mini trampolines and ancient tightropes with antique cloth boxing wraps instead of real wrist braces. The gym they walked into was huge and well appointed with a 40 meter trampoline run, a huge dive pit filled with foam cubes, balance and parallel bars in triplicate and various heights, and foam shapes in every size and form. There were rings and pommel horses and sets of silks stowed against one wall in a neat row. Clint pulled a pair of wrist wraps out of the lost and found and taped them on before beginning to warm up. A stress fracture was the last thing he needed, especially from doing something on his day off. Natasha would never let him hear the end of it.

Bruce and Steve stretched, Bruce doing some Yogic sun salutations and some martial arts, and Steve going through what Clint thought of as Standard Army Calisthenics, Routine 1. Clint took advantage of the floated, bouncy floor and turned a cartwheel, a round off, and a quick back flip, feeling his muscles warming into old routines. He did a handstand on one of the low balance bars and he jumped to swing from the rings briefly. He bounced playfully off the angled mini-tramps, and tested out the long trampoline run, springing along it in high jumps. Steve frowned as though he wished Clint would warm up for physical exercise like a normal person, but Bruce was grinning like he wished he was doing the same thing.

Bruce started with tic-tack's and short wall runs which Steve picked up like a duck to water, and Clint did pretty well with. They worked some with the balance bars set up near the parallel bars to practice precision jumps. Clint had the pleasure of seeing Captain America flailing and off balance and falling off of things, narrowly catching the balance bar as he miscalculated his jump and overshot. He redirected into a controlled swing around and around, legs pulled tight towards his core to avoid hitting the mats. They moved onto various types of vaults after that, which Steve picked up with alarming alacrity. Clint thought he saw him doing some of those already during combat but couldn't remember specific incidents. His Kong vaults especially were impeccable and Clint wasn't ashamed to admit he was a bit jealous.

One wall was fitted out with climbing hand holds, and Bruce showed them how to corner-jump to gain height and grips, and then outlined his preferred ways to get through tight spaces like under railings or through transom windows over doors. Clint, smaller in size than Steve and more accustomed to tight quarters, excelled at this. He didn't mention he had some experience before because hanging out with supermen and gods had a dampening effect on a normal man's self esteem and he would take the ego boosts where he could. Bruce set up and outlined convoluted foot races around the gym, diving through tight quarters, squeezing through fabricated alleys, vaulting across large gaps and bounding between two narrowly spaced walls to gain height to get over an obstacle. Even Steve was impressed by the last move, attempting it several times before managing to time it right.

Bruce timed them on his Stark Pad, and nearly choked trying to keep his laughter covert when Steve's broad shoulders got stuck in an obstacle eliciting a "Darn it!"

Clint ended the evening on the trampoline run doing lines of back flips into the foam pit which he enjoyed more than he would admit. He tried a few for height and a few for speed, and he loved - absolutely adored - the feeling of weightlessness and ease flying through the air before the smell of degrading yellow safety foam blocks enveloped him. Clint’s recent experiences in falling were the antithesis of ‘worry free’. He would fall, desperately hoping his grapnel arrow would catch well enough to arrest his unscheduled descent, or hoping one of his teammates would catch him gently enough to avoid broken ribs before he smashed his head open on the pavement like a commercial for bicycle helmets. The feeling of falling, knowing his landing would be soft, was freeing.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Steve asked when he rolled his way out of the foam pit for the last time, flopping overly dramatically onto a mat.

"The Triton Trouper's Circus - it's based in the Midwest mostly. I learned trick-shooting there, but you had to be able to do everything from trapeze to gymnastics to stay in the show. You'd change costume so it looked like there were more performers than there actually were. I was actually going to try out for Cirque du Soleil, but then... and SHIELD happened." Clint sounded genuinely sad that he hadn't gone on to a life as a successful circus performer, but Steve had no idea what he was talking about with soleil or the specifics of how Clint had gotten recruited to SHIELD, and he shot Bruce a confused look which was only returned to him. They were silent for a beat. "Don't tell Tony about that - he would never shut up."  
\--  
"May I join you?" he asked Darcy, polite and somehow mocking his own politeness simultaneously. Clint would never admit it, but he knew Darcy would be in the cafeteria, and he knew she was sitting alone, and even though he acted like it was a surprise to meet her there, it was totally part of some master plan his conscious and subconscious tag-team cooked up to pick up college coeds. 

"It's a free country," Darcy said rolling her eyes and muttered something that definitely sounded like, “Welcome to the gun show.” He was fairly sure she was staring at his chest.

Clint sat with his tray, awkwardly unloading it into a place setting. He ate silently for a few minutes while Darcy fiddled with her music player, one ear bud dangling down the front of her shirt. They were familiar with one another having worked in the Tesseract facility for several months together. Not together, together, but at the same time. She had stuck to Jane Foster like an aggressive burr, and he had stuck to the rafters. He couldn't remember more than two words they'd said to each other, but she was familiar. He caught her looking sidelong at him and decided that maybe he should make some small talk, or attempt to make some small talk, or talk about _something_ so she would quit throwing furtive glances at him, because he wasn't _that_ scary or anything. I mean, sure, superhero, former government wetwork specialist--okay maybe he was that scary.

"So how did you end up working here?" He asked, quickly shoving a large bite in his mouth so he wouldn't be expected to clarify anything or respond in any way while she spoke. He sometimes suffered from foot in mouth syndrome, and he didn't want to make Darcy feel weird.

"Oh. Well I don't actually work here. I'm an intern. For the summer. And technically I work for Pepper, except she's terrible at allocating stuff to me which I can actually DO so I've been mainly tasked with keeping Tony busy enough to be out of her hair. Which I guess is something I can do pretty well," she concluded cheerfully. "I've gotten a lot of use out of everything I learned in Shop, actually. And I help Bruce with his timed cell culture experiments. And I'm really not using my Poli Sci degree in the least; I feel kind of ripped off."

Clint raised his eyebrows. "Shop?" he asked finally.

"Rural school systems, ya know? It was that or Home Ec, and I will be damned if I'll take Home Ec. But the welding has been super useful and miter saws and laser saws work pretty much the same way. And the 3D printers were pretty easy to use once I figured AutoCAD." Clint's eyes merely widened as he realized Darcy was probably a genius, which was the only reason Potts had taken her on. He hadn’t thought she was stupid, but he had been under the impression that Darcy’s inclusion was a direct result of Jane Foster’s intervention, and had little to do with her own merits. Now that he thought about it, he realized how stupid that was, and that Darcy just might be a closet nerd with a brain running hot enough to need a separate cooling system. Why was he always picking women so out of his league to crush on?

"So you're a... college intern? You're getting paid in college credits?" he asked. He revised her age down a few more years, realizing that he was a dirty, dirty, dirty old man and he should just go back to the land of dirty old men before he embarrassed himself further.

"And room and board. And JARVIS is kind of paying me in tech - new laptop and stuff. And at the rate Tony's experiments are destroying my clothes he _is_ kind of buying me a new wardrobe." She shrugged. "And you wouldn't imagine how much an internship at Stark Industries is worth on a resume. Especially with a letter of rec from the DOD." She looked really satisfied with herself and Clint couldn't blame her. He'd never attended college, let alone most of high school, but he knew her job prospects were shiny rainbows and golden puppy dogs with that sort of clout behind her.

"How did you even start working here?" he asked, glancing around the room filled with scientists, engineers and postdoctoral researchers.

Darcy chewed on her lower lip looking... not embarrassed, but hesitant. "I mostly just made a bunch of James Bond references and called Reed Richards an insufferable dick."

Clint didn't snort coffee out his nose but it was a near thing. She explained something complex about departmental politics and some convoluted way in which Richards professionally snubbed Jane Foster at an academic conference. It was more than a bit over his head, only partly due to the physics.

"Also I worked with Jane for like, 8 months on the Tesseract with Dr. Selvig, so that was like, work experience," she added, kindly not laughing too hard at him and the tiniest drip of coffee that managed the journey through his sinuses and down a nostril, but instead treated him to a sly look. "Tony's pretty cool though - we keep each other super busy. Well, he keeps me busy."

"Well I'm glad to know someone is keeping Stark busy - he gets into trouble without a... project."

Darcy's eyes widened at the implication. "You so did not just," she said sounding threatening. "He is like, as old as my dad. Also, eew. Also, no." She seemed to reconsider. "Okay, yes, but No." Clint laughed. "I am so totally not having boss-boyfriend-nookie with Tony Stark."

"Okay," Clint replied neutrally. "I believe you," he added, shoving a large piece of his taco salad in his mouth to keep from saying anything else inopportune. Darcy narrowed her eyes at him as though trying to suss out if he was messing with her before frowning, deciding she probably couldn't be sure even if she thought she was sure. "Seriously," he added, swallowing mightily, "I mean, I get the appeal, but Tony? No. No way."

Darcy relaxed, and then seemed to consider him. "Do you want to go out sometime?"

"What?"

"Like, dinner, a movie, a walk through Central Park - whatever." She was off-handed about it but there was a nervous undercurrent, Clint suspected was because she had never asked out a professional assassin and superhero, or perhaps because she wasn't used to asking anybody at all.

"Really?" Dear God he didn't want to think about the age difference and how amazing she looked in everything and that he really did love a woman who knew what she wanted and reached out to grab it... "I mean, yes. Yes."

She smiled, bright teeth and a little bit predatory.  
\--  
The date, aside from a few really surreal moments that made Clint say, "Wait, when were you born?" and realize that he's an even more terrible, awful, dirty old man, was wonderful. Darcy had an unusual maturity when separated from Jane and Stark, and she carefully avoided topics which might be sensitive to him. "Did you learn this tact thing from Pepper, because I'm impressed."

"Tact: I have it." She said sounding offended. "I just don't usually _use_ it. Have you met Thor? Tact is the recipe for hilarity with that dude." Darcy was probably the only person who did not grow up in California, or was not actively in California, who said 'dude', and she said it with regularity and relish, along with a vocabulary of profanity which he found admirable. They talked about growing up in the Midwest. Darcy grilled him about what it was like growing up carney, and he found he didn't mind talking about that time with her at all. They exchanged stupid hick stories and, I wish New Yorkers were a little friendlier stories, and they ended up walking through a quiet shopping district, arms linked.

"Do you get custom shirts made, because seriously." Darcy he realized, was running a hand up and down his bicep appreciatively and he crinkled a smile at her.

"JARVIS manages my wardrobe - I have no idea how. I just wear what he puts in my closet," Clint admitted, not wanting to think about how the clothes got there. Going from relative poverty, to the Army, to SHIELD meant he had never owned much but his bow: all clothes were subject to recall from his employers. He was sure that if he packed up his clothes and walked out of Stark Tower he'd never hear anything about it. Part of him still felt like the button downs and slacks were part of an op - a costume he wore every day - and he had yet to find his 'Clint' costume anywhere.

"I think that's Pepper, actually. I don't think the robot butler is super fashion savvy." Clint refrained from telling her that he took JARVIS’ advice on the clothes he was currently in.

"Do you ever find it creepy how Stark just kind of, adopted everyone?" Clint favored her with a raised eyebrow. "I mean, what was that like? Just, 'Come and hang out at my awesome pad - we can totally be bros and fight crime slash Nazis slash magic'? Or, 'I'm a raging alcoholic with a superhero problem and we should become a merry band of ne'er do wells and angst while putting down the villain of the week with a snappy tag line or two'." She put on a growly, sardonic voice to mock Tony.

"I am totally ignorant as to how he got everyone else onboard. Banner turned him down and fled to one of the 'stans for three months. Stark kept sending relief supplies to wherever he was working with snarky notes until Bruce agreed to come back and work here. Cap wouldn't come back to SHIELD until he had visited every one of the continental United States by bike. Potts just hired me. Thor just kind of... showed up. And I'm still not sure that Natasha actually lives there."

"She lives there." Darcy assured him. "I saw her sneaking naked into the kitchen one night."

"That could just be Natasha." Clint said it automatically, but on further consideration decided she wouldn't have gotten caught if she had really intended stealth of any sort. He decided that Darcy was probably right.

They walked and talked for another hour, and spent an hour or two after that on the roof of the Tower chatting. They snuggled progressively closer against an aggressive wind and Darcy was giving him a coy look. "I should get back home." She said, standing slowly. "You know, if you were interested in joining me..." She was running her fingertips down his forearm to grasp at the calloused palm, tugging gently. He stood over her, and it was their first date and she was pale in the glow of the Tower lettering, and he didn't want her to think he was that kind of girl.

"Are you sure?" He wasn't normally the hesitant type, but more than a decade is one hell of an age difference and this was not the wisest thing he has ever done and she was kissing him aggressively and without really thinking about it he kissed her back.

"Oh yeah."

She fumbled at the thumbprint lock and key code and then they're inside her apartment (22nd floor in the center of the building, excellent security profile) groping with enthusiasm.

"Oh my God." Darcy had been tugging at his button down, not-very-effectively opening it so she could run her hands all over his undershirt. They kissed, aggressive and sloppy. He rumbled in frustration, thumbs hooked under her blouse and running palms over her stomach. She pushed him away with a mew of frustration and pulled her shirt over her head. Taking that as a cue, Clint did the same. 

Her gasp was not one of sexual ecstasy or awe, "Holy fuck," she continued reached out for the bared back before her, almost touched some of the multitude of scars but pulled back at the last minute. Clint got tangled in the undershirt/half-unbuttoned dress shirt combo and was suddenly shy and unsure about this whole getting naked and fucking like bunnies business. He glanced over his shoulder feeling almost timid under Darcy's apprehensive gaze. He felt her fingertips brush lightly over where they dug a piece of shrapnel out by his kidney while her other hand moved over the recognizable stitch marks where Natasha had put him back together in eastern Europe. The stitches had been put in with utility in mind and with little thought to whether they would scar when healed. Her soft touch made him feel more exposed than if he was naked and splayed on her bed, but it hardly lasted a moment before she was licking her way gleefully up his back and sinking her teeth into his shoulder.

"You are built like a god. And I would know," she told his shoulder and rubbed her breasts against him in a delightfully shameless manner.

He turned to run his hands all over her hips and ass and dark nipples - holy crap why did he find cotton bras so sexy? "Careful there Darce - you'll give a man a big head..."

They tumbled onto her couch and Darcy was grinding on the leg between her thighs and Clint's pants were getting seriously strapped for space. Somehow Darcy got his pants off and a hand wrapped around him, and he got a hand into her jeans and panties and they brought each other off with fingers and palms like frantic teenagers, using moans and grunts of pleasure and cries of "Yes there more" as the roadmap for mutual pleasure.

Darcy groaned in satisfaction, the vibration traveling through Clint's palm resting on her belly. "Your fingers are like, the best thing ever." A pause. "I can't believe we did that on the couch."

"We could do it again on the kitchen counter if you wanted. Or the washing machine." Darcy giggled and pushed at Clint's chest playfully. "Or on the front lawn. Or even in your bed. Maybe even my bed."

"Oh, gasp - your bed?"

"Mmm. I could be convinced," Clint replied, nosing close to her neck and inhaling, enjoying the scent of sweat and vanilla body wash.  
\--  
Clint was looking for a quiet place to go over the week's security reports. When he asked JARVIS, the AI suggested, "Perhaps the computer lab, Sir." Which, of course there was a computer lab. Now that he was reminded of it he remembered passing it a few times next to the breastfeeding privacy room on one of the Stark Industries research floors.

Steve was there, surprisingly, his computer emitting little 8-bit sound effects. He was engrossed in his hunting and pecking which was the only reason Clint was able to sneak up on him. A small cartoon Mario was traversing a tropical landscape, jumping gaps and turtles in time with Steve pressing the correct key. Mario fell into a lava pit and Steve pushed back from the desk with a frustrated sigh.

"Are you playing Mario Teaches Typing?" Clint asked, actually managing to startle Cap.

"No. I'm learning to touch-type."

"You do realize JARVIS takes dictations, right?"

"Yes." Steve replied, thinking how to phrase his thoughts. "But it's one of those things that everyone else seems to know how to do that seems... necessary." Clint humphed and settled on a couch with a pull out laptop stand in the arm. "You're not going to give me a hard time? Mock me over a lack of adequate educational resources? Protest how useless it is to learn a skill already falling out of style?" He asked more than a little biting. Suddenly Clint realized why Steve was in this out-of-the-way computer lab.

"No," he replied letting his bafflement show through. "I get it. I mean, if I was stuck in the 40's I'm sure I'd want to know how to, I don't know, shine my spats, or something. Even if someone else could do it for me."

Steve was laughing at him, and Clint was okay with that. "Do you even know what spats are?" Steve asked.

"Not a clue," Clint admitted easily. Steve laughing like that was rare enough he was feeling generous.

Steve explained that they're shoe covers and would be really hard to shine, and Clint was glad he'd never owned shoes nice enough to need them, or lived in an era that expected clean shoes during inclement weather. They sounded like a pain. 

"How do you even deal with life here? I mean, I had a hard time getting used to SHIELD and I grew up in the late 20th century."

Steve huffed a self-deprecating laugh. "When I get really overwhelmed I pretend I'm Buck Rogers." He glanced at Clint as though waiting for the ridicule to start.

"Wait - you mean the guy with the spaceship?"

"A man out of time. He got the spaceship in the serials." Steve said it in the offhanded, somewhat fervent manner of a True Fan who didn't want normal people to know how big a fan he really was. They probably beat up Fantastic Tales geeks back in the day.

"Huh," was all Clint could think to reply, because he can't remember if he'd even seen Buck Rogers, and his obsession with comic books hadn't gone back that far.

Steve turned down the bleeping and booping touch-type game to let Clint read undisturbed. He pulled up everything on Buck Rogers that JARVIS found across the internet and he skimmed through it, setting aside the security reports for a moment. The parallels were more than a bit eerie - soldier lost in time, out of his element and forced to lead troupes from the future which he was only somewhat equipped to understand. Technology and geopolitics progressing far past Rogers' (and wasn't that a coinkidink?) ability to comprehend easily. It struck Clint as more than a little odd that in order to cope with being a soldier who had slept through an era or three, Steve pretended to be a soldier who slept through an era or three, but it occurred to him he really couldn't judge: he couldn't even count the number of times he had pretended to be Robin Hood.  
\---  
"I don't believe it." Stark said part outrage, part challenge, and all derision.

"You should know better by now about saying something like that," Clint replied mildly, his tone equal in condescension.

Cap got dragged into things, and when Thor heard the words 'martial prowess' he interpreted 'wanton destruction' so he had followed them all. Stark was not-so-subtly trying to get Steve to lay a bet. Natasha and Clint were back to back in the middle of the range, pistols and bow in hands. They touched at the rise of their shoulder blades, buttocks, and their hair brushed together.

Stark set off a programmed series of targets. Natasha, then Clint, called the locations of the targets to their backs.

Steve quirked an impressed eyebrow. "There's no way they peeked."

"I don't care - there is no such thing called 'back talk' which they teach in 'SHIELD Spy Academy,'" Stark replied. "Okay, this time take the shots."

A new pattern of targets began moving. Stark would have liked the option of viewing a high-def replay (which he was going to take advantage of later on, because, JARVIS). Natasha slid and dropped to a knee while Clint turned, nocking an arrow and stepping to brace a thigh down her back in a firm shooting stance. Natasha and Clint were shooting before they were fully turned, dividing targets at the limits of their 180's by unspoken communication.

"That was amazing!" Steve said, appreciatively. It was not that he didn't know their prowess in this arena, but he hadn't often gotten the opportunity to simply appreciate it while on an active battleground.

Stark scowled.

Natasha and Clint shared a self-satisfied smirk as Natasha rose from her crouch. The trick of it lay in feeling the muscle tension through your partner as though it were your own. Balance, movement, the slight shift of muscle under armor. Natasha could feel the shift in his neck as he counted targets. He could feel the roll of her shoulders and the smallest tension running down her hamstrings. This was not words, but it was communication. "You know who's too awesome for words? We are." Clint said, turning to offer a fist for bumping. Natasha almost had an expression, and obliged.  
\--  
Natasha fell into bed behind Clint, startling him badly. Some time between moving to the Tower and that moment, Clint's subconscious had designated his nest-like quarters as a safe space where he could drop into the death-like REM sleep which he so rarely afforded himself. Natasha's arm wrapped around his bare stomach and squeezed him with an almost-squeak.

He turned in her grasp - which she magnanimously allowed - and bumped foreheads with her in a silent greeting. A few smears of mascara dust speckled her eyelashes and cheeks and her lips bore a trace of lipstick, darker than her hair. She had a hazy, self-satisfied smile.

"Nat?" Clint asked, finding himself slowly returning her grin. At her continued contented silence Clint's own smile grew slightly more nervous. "Who did you kill?" Her smile flipped to a playful scowl and she punched him quickly in the arm. "Ow. Wait. Oh shit - that is your post-a-really-great-boning face." Her frown turned more petulant and sultry. Very seriously "Did he survive?" Natasha snorted a laugh and punched him again.

She bit her lip coyly, and though he never had gotten the hang that Coulson had of reading her with perfect accuracy, he liked to believe she was her own genuine self with him. "Bruce and I... after the concert."

"Oh my God. And you came here to snuggle in BED with me?" Clint asked, only part of his fear feigned. "He is going to kill me. The rage monster is going to smash me into a fletched paste. Death by Hulk is not how I wanted to go - I should be a pretty corpse."  
Natasha gave him a quelling look. "Really?" she stated, more than asked.

"Seriously - why are you here with me instead of..."

"He's totally knocked out. And-" she stopped in that very Natasha way that seemed cold and controlled, but for her was practically a girlish hesitation, "I wanted to talk to my best friend..." she trailed off with a shy sort of invitation. She bumped their foreheads again and sprawled across his pillow, forcing Clint to prop himself up on one elbow or be pushed off his bed.

"So am I supposed to do Girl Talk?" Clint asked, mischievous. "I warn you, I'm total crap at it. And I might get a hard-on," he added, confidentially.

Natasha laughed. "I was never any good either. I'm still not," she returned his grin.

There was a pause where they both tried to decide where to go from there. "So is the Hulk the beast in bed that he is on the battlefield?" Clint asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "He didn't, you know- HYAARRGH - in bed, did he?" Clint mimed Banner's transformation with his mock cry of anguish, pretending to rip off his nonexistent shirt.

The coy, cat-with-the-cream look was back. "Doctor Banner," she replied pointedly, "has mastered non-ejaculatory male orgasms."

Clint's mouth dropped open in confusion. "Wait. What?" Natasha gave him a 'I pity your slow mind' look. "Multiple orgasm?" he asked finally. "He's the gift that keeps on giving?"

Natasha's grin was equal parts wolfish and satisfied. "He is also probably the most flexible man I have ever had the pleasure to have been with. And I've been with my share of the Vaganova Academy." She hesitated. "Well, I have memories of being with my share of them," she amended.

"I think this qualifies as workplace sexual harassment via TMI. Didn't they make me take a seminar on this?" Clint informed her, mocking scandalized and earning another punch in the arm. "Partner abuse too!" He said, rubbing a burgeoning bruise, because Natasha was not a woman to pull even her playful punches.

Natasha had gone quiet and thoughtful - not her blank-faced, I'm not giving anything away quiet and thoughtful. She was regarding him with warm consideration. "You seem better," she said, finally, an abrupt topic change. Clint just blinked at her. She smiled wickedly. "I got worried when Steve went on about how you were a stabilizing influence in the Tower and Bruce said he was happy he wasn't the quietest one. The fridge hasn't even gotten a good booby trap yet."

Clint sobered and turned to give her his back once more. She spooned up and hummed comfortingly into his spine right where he would occasionally get a tension cramp. "I just couldn't deal with the fact that I had always been the wise-ass at SHIELD and I was the one to get brain-puppeted by Loki."

"Oh, Дорогая, you didn't ask for it. Nothing you did - it was all on him."

"The old me just didn't seem that funny anymore. Nothing seemed that funny anymore."

"I don't know. When you Saran wrapped Thor into his quarters on the helicarrier, that was pretty hilarious," Natasha replied.

"MIDGARDIAN MAGIC!" Clint imitated Thor's roar, raising his fists and shaking them. "I guess I just needed some time. Nothing seemed like the right thing to say. I just..." He threw his head back, reclaiming some of his pillow through force of skull and exposed his throat in a show of trust between them in one movement. _I miss Coulson_ went unsaid. He had been Clint's handler since his recruitment from the service, and he had always known what to do to put him back together, or make him feel better and get him back in the game. Now he wouldn't get that calm exterior with the mischievous, caring center greeting him after a mission ever again. _I don't know what to do to ever feel good again_ , also went unsaid, but he suspected that Natasha knew. He had lost people - _they_ had lost people - but it had never hit quite like this.

"Potts gave me the name of some excellent psychologists with clearance, if you're ever interested," she offered.

"Were you? Interested?" he asked incredulous.

"I've been seeing one for a few months," Natasha replied, unashamed and calm. “I’m relatively sure I am the reason for my psychologist’s new store of antacids; she has said I am the definition of a ‘tough nut to crack’.”

They were silent for a beat, Clint absorbing. "So lets get back to talking about the Sex," Clint said because he wanted to hear about how she was happy and that Bruce no longer made her quake in the cold, adrenaline-fueled place beneath her heart. She obliged him, talking about sex and spending time with Bruce. She shared in the way that only people who've spent days in the same blind, and seen each other naked more times than they could count, and stitched or bound or held each other together in a thousand different ways, could. Bruce would probably be blushing if he knew that Clint had heard about, well, everything, but as much as he was a motor mouth, he could keep it shut when needed. She slipped out an hour later, pressing a light kiss to his temple as he dozed.  
\--  
Bruce and Natasha were both in the kitchen the next morning when Clint stumbled in, obviously on cup number two or three of coffee based on the caliber of conversation happening. Natasha was seated on the kitchen counter tending a huge pan of bacon while Bruce soaked bread for french toast. Natasha pressed a cup of coffee - too sweet and rich with flavored creamer - into his hands. Natasha drank coffee that looked at tasted like motor oil so she must have prepared it just for him. They shared a smile.

"You two, quit that sibling mind-share thing." Bruce waved a Teflon fork at them without looking up. Clint guzzled his coffee while Natasha flipped bacon.

The line of the doctor's back was as relaxed as Clint had ever seen it and his hips wiggled along with some song only he could hear. Indicating the bouncing buttocks, Clint mouthed, 'adorable' at Natasha, giving her a thumbs up to which she grinned and mouthed, 'I know', eyes laughing.

"Unless you are complimenting my ass, I mean it." Bruce reprimanded, sliding the first piece of bread onto the griddle.

"Clint's got impeccable taste." Natasha replied, running her fingers through his hair at the tiny patch of grey at his temple in a casually affectionate gesture.

"Good morning all!" Even sleepy, Thor boomed and rumbled. "I beg a cup of your black nectar!" Natasha had on one of her blankest expressions while Clint made a valiant effort to not laugh out loud or begin mocking the demi-god. Thor accepted a cup of Natasha's motor oil with a gleam of anticipation. Moving to the stove he cut off a huge chunk of butter and took a bite of it off of the knife before stirring the rest into his steaming mug.

"What. The. Hell," Clint stated having never observed that particular morning ritual. Thor took a gulp of the steaming stuff and smacked greasy lips appreciatively.

Bruce's butt was going again and abruptly all Clint could think about was last night and 'ejaculation' and 'multiple orgasm', and that dreamy, sated look he so rarely saw on Natasha's face, and he blushed a dark red.

"Hawkeye - are you well?" Thor asked, clapping him mightily on the back and causing him to genuinely sputter. If he never thought about Bruce having sex again it would be too soon. The thought was derailed at Natasha's fond look which somehow conveyed, 'I know what you were just thinking' and 'it's okay, I will never tell' at the same time.  
\--  
Natasha and Bruce continued to be a thing. Clint learned more about the sexual prowess of the good doctor than he ever, ever wanted to know. Anybody else and he might have crowed it around the Tower. Stark would laugh at his reticence and say it was because he was afraid of what Natasha would do when she inevitably found out, but that would be short-changing her. He respected Natasha and out of that respect he stayed quiet and kept all those awkward gems of intimacy between the two of them (and Bruce).

She still came to him after a particularly difficult op, crawling into his bed or perching next to him on the couch, face buried in his shoulder.

"Does Bruce know you do this?" Clint asked as she dragged his pelvis to a different angle so his back sat better against her front. "Does he know where you got at night after you two sleep together?" He asked it in a tone as close to gentleness as Natasha would allow.

Her side-eyed glance was all he needed to see. "Tasha, I don't want him finding out on his own. You should tell him." She gave him an almost petulant look.

"He knows I used to come here. I think he can extrapolate."

Clint raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You have met Bruce, right?"

"Point." She sighed. "I'll talk with him about it." She said, moving to rise and climb down from his bed.

"You know you're always welcome here. Even if Darcy's - actually I think she'd be kinda into cuddling with you."

Natasha gave him a look that said _shut up moron_ and _I know_ and _thank you_.  
\--  
"Are those cowboy boots?" Darcy asked, eyebrows crinkled in an adorable incredulous frown.

"Yes," Clint replied with equanimity.

"Huh." Darcy paused. "Do I need cowboy boots?"

"They're not required. If you have some it wouldn't hurt, though."

The cowboy boots that Darcy had were apparently made by tacky elves in the North Pole, or something, because they were red, white, and blue with fringe and huge silver medallions half-way up the calf. "Saddle up, cowboy," she said when she returned from her room, skipping.

"You were saving that one up, weren't you?"

"Just a bit." Darcy stuck out her tongue, just a little, while smiling. Clint took that as a signal to kiss her stupid. They took a cab to the bar.

"Is this a cowboy bar?"

"Are you going to keep asking inane questions?"

"Is that rhetorical?" Darcy asked, looping a hand through his elbow.

Clint took them to the bar and ordered two shitty beers and set them up at a little table. Couples danced to country tunes making their way around the cramped floor.

A couple danced by pressed together, front to back. The man was wearing short-shorts. The other man was wearing... "Is this a gay cowboy bar?" Darcy asked.

Clint glanced around and shrugged. He opened his mouth as though about to say something and then shrugged again and took a long pull from his beer.

"I'll race you for how many people you can pick up. I bet I can get more numbers than you in..." she looked at her phone, "the next hour and ten minutes."

"Why an hour and ten minutes?" Clint asked, already shaking out his shoulders in preparation for a flirting session on par with his last undercover experience speed dating.

Wordlessly Darcy pointed at the mechanical bull, surrounded by padded mats and a guard rail. The sign hanging on the chain across the entrance to the bull-riding area said, _Opens at 11 PM sharp, $5/ride_ with a lengthy waiver in tiny print below that.

"Fair enough." Clint reached across the little table they had been sitting at and kissed Darcy lingeringly, stroking her tongue with his own before parting.

"Digits or it didn't happen," she reminded him, wiggling her eyebrows. She was already adjusting her breasts in her top, rolling up her sleeves, and shaking her hair so it stood out a bit wild.

Clint had never had a shortage of companionship of the female kind when he's wanted it, so he knew his heterosexual flirting wasn't bad. Darcy was already chatting up a butch woman at the bar, so he threw his shoulders back and went for the first man he saw.  
\--  
"How did you get this many numbers?" Clint asked, sorting through the slips of paper and receipts with writing on the back.

Darcy preened. "I can be a lesbian wet dream when I want to be." Clint raised an eyebrow at her. "Let’s see yours."

Clint dropped two lonely strips of paper on their table. "Seriously?"

Clint shrugged. His flirting just wasn't up to par when he wasn't either sincerely interested or in a life-or-death operation situation. He was fine with letting Darcy win this one. "I'm okay with you being better at picking up lesbians than I am at picking up gay men."

"That means you pay for my bull rides!"

Even if he hadn't lost their 'race', Clint would have been happy to pay for as many bull rides as Darcy wanted. The operator was just starting to test the hydraulics when they sidled up. "You want to ride?" he asked looking at Clint than Darcy.

"Oh yeah." Darcy made it sound like sexual innuendo and a challenge, all rolled into one, and he was suddenly fighting his own arousal, fumbling in his pocket for his wallet. Darcy signed up and made him sign up too. They watched the operator put the mechanical bull through its paces. It seemed as safe as a leather 'shoulders' formed over a pile of hydraulics was likely to be.

Darcy was wearing a jean skirt which made it as far as mid-thigh and gave up. It wasn't the raciest thing in the bar by far, but watching her mount the 'bull' and wrap the strap carefully into her palm was _erotic_. Her pale thighs gripped firmly onto the leather flanks and the flex of her calf muscles over the tops of her boots was just barely visible.

"You ready?" the operator asked, pushing some buttons and sliding the guard-rail back in place.

Darcy looked at Clint and _winked_ , "Definitely."

The bull shook and spun, jerked and whipped back and forth. Darcy maintained her seat, hips working fluidly and thighs flexing snugly around the barrel of the thing. She whooped and laughed in a way that was close to a scream. Her skirt inched up her thighs until it was barely covering her crotch, flashes of brilliant purple panties showing once when the bull took a dive.

Clint's mouth was dry by the time the bull stopped moving, and blood was making a rapid bee-line south. Had it only been eight seconds? Darcy was laughing, big wheezing gasps, when she slid off the bull, rolling into the matting surrounding it. She had lost a boot some time during the ride and she went to collect it.

"That was quite a ride. It was only set to medium, but she'da probably made it on hard." The operator frowned in a way that Clint surmised meant he was impressed.

"Darcy's a real firecracker. I'm going to be off in three seconds or less," he confided.

The bull operator gave a meaningful glance to the bulge in his jeans and smirked. "That won't impress your miss. I hope you have some backup plans in place to please the lady if your... performance... is over so quick."

Clint wanted to blush until his head burst like a cherry tomato from the redirection of blood to his cheeks, but Darcy had gotten her boot on, untangled herself from the mats, and slipped over the guard-rail to fall on him with a big kiss to one pinking cheek. "Your turn!" she crowed happily.

"You did great - I'm really impressed," he said, trying to derail her from forcing him to go.

"Thanks!" she said brightly. "After you've gone I'll tell you my secret and how I survived The Widowing Angus at the Billy Goat Hullabaloo in New Mexico."

"For real?" Clint asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Pony up, cowboy." She slapped him on the ass, propelling him towards the ride entrance. Clint was no stranger to horses or large animals. He'd mucked out enough stalls for performance animals in the circus to be pretty intimately familiar with beasts of all shapes and sizes. He'd never been a comfortable horseman, though, and the bull had an oddly sinister look.

He mounted the thing with some trepidation. He pulled on the strap - thick leather and smooth with wear - before wrapping it just as he had seen Darcy do, and gripped it in his palm. Prepared, he raised his free hand to signal the operator.

The next five seconds were a blur of movement, inner-ear imbalance and a lurching sense of terror. Clint had been in car and plane crashes before - hell, he had been _driving_ during car and plane crashes. This was disorienting in an entirely different way but with the same flash of adrenaline and the feeling of whiplash. He tried to grip with his thighs and keep his center of gravity under him, but the hydraulic beast threw him into the soft mats. Clint rolled with it, coming up on hands and knees.

Darcy laughed at him but helped him out of the ring.

"I think I sprained something."

"Oh, does little Clint need me to kiss it all better?" She kissed him on the cheek. "Where does it hurt?"

"Here." Clint pointed decisively at his groin. Darcy just laughed, and Clint thanked whatever crazy god it was that pushed them together.

"You want to know my secret?" she asked, teasing.

"Totally."

"Here," she took his hand and laid the palm across the inside of her thigh. It felt hot as though it had just been slapped. He raised his eyebrows. "Bare skin sticks to the leather on those guys like glue to shit you're trying not to get glue on. Nobody ever calls me on it 'cause they like looking."

"You are one devious woman, Ms. Lewis. I approve."  
\--  
Clint liked working near Bruce. The other man's calm exterior, patient manner, and complete absorption made it easy for him to concentrate. The duct over Bruce's lab was a favorite of his. No matter how many times Bruce had invited him to come in the front door he still usually scooted through the ducts and tapped away at paperwork on his StarkPad while lying on his belly in the duct. It had gotten to the point that the grating leading into the lab was permanently removed and some protective foam has been glued around the ragged edges of the hole so Clint wouldn't scrape up his forearms on the ragged aluminum.

Sometimes he napped up there, a quiet background of pop songs and classical music intermingling with Bruce's murmurs and the click of lab equipment. Since before the car accident that made him an orphan, high places were always Clint's safe haven. The topmost branches of trees and the roof of the little house he barely remembered were retreats of calming solitude. In the circus, Clint could usually be found up in the support poles of the big top, lying on lighting rigs in the catwalks designed for tightrope walkers and ribbon dancers' invisible entry to the stage. He would wrap a belt he stole from Buck around a crossbeam and sleep in the stuffy nylon warmth.

The ducts ran more to arctic cool, and air was a constant fresh stream around him, but the protected, closed in feeling was the same. Bruce would call breaks for them pouring coffee and pulling out packets of cookies he kept in a lab drawer. He would sit on the bench top by Clint's duct port, head resting against the wall while they shared chocolate-coated wafers. 

"I never thought I would do this again." Bruce said softly. Clint dipped his wafer into his mug and sucked on it noisily before shoving it into his mouth. "I never thought I could be back doing research in a lab with colleagues." Bruce waved his wafer, encompassing the high tech space as well as Clint behind him.

"You'd kinda given up on your existence as a living purgatory, huh."

Bruce jerked, just a tiny movement, and turned to frown at Clint. Their faces were close enough that Clint could see the flecks of electric green through Bruce's dark irises, a constant reminder of the Hulk.

"I know how that is," was all Clint said to Bruce's stunned look. Before he could think better of it he leaned in and knocked foreheads with Bruce like he would with Natasha - a gesture of companionship and solidarity. Bruce crinkled at him thoughtfully, so similar to Natasha's lipless smile, and ducked his nose into his coffee.  
\--  
"Hey, I have a question away from the Tower." Clint said during a date at an Italian restaurant below a used book store. SHIELD had made sure Clint's palate was tolerant - he would eat anything that wasn't actively poisonous or trying too hard to escape - but he preferred less adventurous choices when given the option.

"Hm?" Darcy asked wearing a sauce-covered noodle like a mustache.

Clint stifled a rush of - _oh my god you're amazing I love you please never leave me_ \- with a chuckle. "So how likely do you think it is that JARVIS goes Skynet on us?"

Darcy sucked her noodle mustache into her mouth and swiped her tongue across her upper lip in a thoughtful gesture. "I'm not worried." She said finally.

"Why?" Clint probed.

"He's got a wicked sense of humor - kinda Brit-ish? I don't know - but he has totally gotten me a few times."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Clint asked, piling lasagna on his fork in a cheesy Jenga game.

Darcy gave him a look which said 'really?' and 'cretin' and 'are you kidding me' and 'I love an idiot'. She must have picked that look up from Stark. "Humor is super-complex on the emotion/reaction scale. He's funny without being cruel which implies empathy or whatever the machine equivalent is because we _know_ Tony didn't program that in. So essentially, JARVIS is an AI that programmed slash learned empathy into himself. Likelihood of Skynet? Low. Likelihood of totalitarian AI dictatorship... slightly higher. But only if Tony dies before he has an heir or something. Long live our computerized overlord, I say."

"Huh." Clint huffed, "You've thought a lot about this."

"J and I are bros. You should see what he thinks of the Matrix some day."

"I think I could live happily without hearing a super powered AI's thoughts on the Machines' war against humanity."  
\--  
Clint was a hopeless cook for anything less than twenty, which meant he was the only one really qualified to cook for the Avengers' appetites. During one golden autumn when Cook had dislocated his shoulder falling over a camp cooler, he had been taken off other duties and put in the chow tent to act as surrogate arms for the surly, greasy man. Though he wasn't quite thirteen, he drove for Cook on supply runs, chopped, butchered, cracked and breaded for the whole circus. Cook would smoke and bellow directions at Clint, rubbing the sausagey fingers of his good arm across his greasy apron. Putting out meals for fifty or more, morning, noon, and night was no small feat, and he spent those months as exhausted as he ever remembered being.

They cooked chicken fried steaks and massive fry-up’s, briskets and pork steaks and hamburger meat in a myriad of ways. They made fifty pounds of mashed potatoes at a time and oatmeal in a pot Clint could have bathed in. Beans of some sort were served with every meal, and vegetables came out of cans or from fruit stands along the highway. Cook showed him how to make bread, kneading massive pillows of dough until his arms went numb, his shoulders ached, and he was pasty with flour.

Since shacking up with the Avengers, Clint had tried to cook from some recipes JARVIS supplied him but he was more used to measures made in pounds and bushels, and it came out a disaster.

"How much of this?" Darcy asked, hefting a twenty pound bag of flour onto the counter.

"All of it." Clint said, pointing at the industrial mixer which a toddler could take a bath in. "I ordered for the recipe - just mix everything I gave you."

Darcy looked at Clint as though he might have lost a screw somewhere. Bruce had asked for cinnamon rolls for his birthday. Bruce asked for so little, so seldom, that by group consensus they got it for him to encourage the behavior. Seeing something he could actually accomplish, Clint had volunteered.

"This will make like-"

"Forty pounds of dough. Stark is selling the leftovers for the Maria Stark Foundation." Clint nodded towards the plastic bins laid out to receive the dough and rise in.

"Do you know the meaning of overkill?" She asked.

"I _am_ the meaning of overkill."

"That doesn't even make sense," She said, rubbing a floury hand over his face and through his hair.

Darcy gleefully abused her tub of dough after the first proof, poking dimples into the puffy surface. "Careful. That dough is for orphans with cancer or something." She laughed at him.

"Do you even know what the Maria Stark Foundation does?"

"No clue. But any woman who survived Stark's early childhood without resorting to murder has got to be a saint."

They rolled out sheets of dough large enough to use as bedrolls and filled double-sized sheet tray after double-sized sheet tray with legions of swirly cinnamon soldiers. As they rose, nuts and raisins popped out the top of them. The one they made for Bruce was so large it took up an 8-inch cake pan. They got into a minor icing fight when they got to the icing phase which left them both sticky and covered in filthy looking streaks of white. Natasha came to check on them some time after the fighting had calmed down.

"Children," she said fondly, taking the giant cinnamon roll prize from their sticky grasp.  
\--  
Clint was hesitant about showing Darcy his quarters. She'd grown used to the opulence of Stark Towers and his personal space looked like what it was - a converted office. A little kitchenette area was confluent with his TV, couch and desk, and the bed was lofted over all of it. The bed took advantage of a long strip of window, canted to look down on the prototypes floor. Except for the bathroom it was all one crowded little space and it was full of everything he owned, which, aside from an ancient teddy bear, was almost nothing. Darcy's apartment looked like a place where someone lived - someone who's a real person who does things like grocery shopping and dusting - and his looked like the hideout for some sort of crazy agoraphobic with an anti-hoarding problem.

"You don't have to - I like my bed just fine." Darcy offered him an easy out, but he decided that morning he wouldn't take the easy out. If she wanted to keep sleeping with him she should probably know the full extent of his insanity. He took her up the back way - an iron spiral staircase completely out of place within the larger building - and hung back as she entered.

She was silent, and he was worried, and he went to try and see her face. His crossing the threshold was like some sort of permission and she was suddenly animated, peering around the corners of the room and playing with the ears of Balew and generally upsetting his world order. "Where's your bed?" She asked finally, puzzled. He looked up and she looked up and squealed, climbing nimbly up the ladder to the mattress and bounce-rolling across it. Normally he would have had a vein twitching out of his skull if someone else was doing this in his personal space, but they'd had sex on the kitchen counter that morning waiting for the water to boil for tea and he felt that matched her rolling on his mattress for intimacy. He found himself increasingly fond of seeing her happy, and the squeak when she bounce-rolled to the edge of the bed and landed with a fleshy splat on the angled window was precious.

"YOUR PLACE IS AWESOME." She said, face plastered against the glass of his window, making steamy patterns with her breath. And she sounded like she meant it; Clint could not believe his good fortune. "It's like an apartment in a submarine or something!" And Clint wasn't quite as pleased with that comparison, but all things considered, that was rather flattering.

He joined Darcy in his bed, kicking off his boots before crawling down next to her where she was plastered against his window. She drew things in the oils from her fingertip on his window, and they kissed, and wrestled and had languid sex. "I should walk you back." He told Darcy when he finally roused himself from post coital haze.

"Why?" She murmured petulantly, burying deeper into the pectoral on which she was dozing.

Clint shifted, once more shy. "I'm a terrible sleeper. I have nightmares, I need to pee all the time, I roll around like crazy. I talk in my sleep." He sounded as though he was going to list more reasons but Darcy cut him off.

"Well that's fine, because I am a champion sleeper. I am one of the top ten in the world for sleeping. I slept through a tornado WITH tornado sirens, and an earthquake once. The Hulk on the Helicarrier? I totally wasn't there - but I would have slept through that. I slept through my birthday once." She snuggled harder, throwing a knee over his thighs to keep him from getting up and carrying her back to her apartment. True to her word, she was a sleep champion, not even noticing when he flailed into her while waking from a nightmare, sweating and panicked, or when he curled up around her once more, for once getting to be the big spoon. He still woke before her but it was a slow awakening and she smiled at him. "See? I'm awesome."  
\--  
"You're here early." Bruce said when Darcy walked into the group kitchen before 9AM. He had a sly look.

"Actually I was here late. Super late." Darcy replied with a gleeful smirk running her eyes up and down Clint's backside. "And by here, I mean, in Hawkeye's nest."

"Oooh." Bruce raised a hand to high-five Darcy and then the other for Clint when he gave a mock-hurt look. "Nookie in the Tower!"

"You would know." Clint said.

"You did not just say 'nookie'." Darcy said.

"Lady Darcy - is this true?" Thor boomed.

With a glance at Clint's rather goofy grin. "Oh yeah."

"This is tremendous news! Celebrations are in order!" Thor replied, scooping Darcy and Clint up and squeezing them in their own one armed hugs. "My new allies and old friends join their houses - auspicious!"

"Hold on buddy - nobody said anything about house-joining." Darcy snapped, pushing at a massive forearm for release.

"Indeed! But joining the temples of your bodies is indeed a glorious occasion. Why the maiden Jane-"

"That's enough of that!" Clint had the gift for cutting through Thor's prodigious voice. "On Midgard it is not okay to talk about sexual relations without the permission of your partner."

"Let us journey to the House of the Pancakes in a celebratory breaking of the fast!"

"We're not allowed back since... with the drinking songs." Clint reminded him.

"Why don't we just make some here?" Bruce offered.

"I got mimosas started." Stark tipped a champagne flute at them from behind the bar.  
\--  
By some sort of combined agreement, Stark and Steve did their level best to keep Bruce and the Hulk out of combat. "Bruce is so much more valuable in the lab than getting emotionally scarred and potentially committing extraordinary feats of property damage." Tony said protectively the first time they flew out without Bruce.

"I'd like to reserve him - use him only in the cases of extreme necessity." Steve said when Clint asked him directly. "He's part of the team - no question - but his mind is just as valuable as the Other Guy's strength."

"What would those cases of extreme necessity be?" Clint asked, curious about where Steve's line was.

"Instances of extreme radiation exposure or ultra-high-risk front line assaults. If we need a heavy hitter in replacement or addition to Thor."  
Clint wondered if Bruce minded being benched while everyone went out to fight HYDRA or Doom bots, or aliens. Bruce shrugged philosophically when he asked. "You guys have the aliens covered. I'm a scientist. The most good I can do is in the lab. I'm really close to leveraging my macrophages to create a cure for multispectrum antibiotic resistant malaria. That will save a lot of people."

So they weren't actually that experienced at going into battle with the Hulk. Thor enjoyed being the Heavy on the combat team and Bruce didn't mind. This meant that when Thor was recalled to Asgard for a few weeks of politicking and a HYDRA base needed to be cracked open, everyone was still a bit on edge about the Hulk. Except Stark, who, completely without warrant, had decided that the Hulk was his best buddy.

Iron Man deployed first, flitting out the Quinjet hatch - a huge hummingbird with a contrail. Before anyone could stop him, Bruce had shucked his shirt and leapt after Iron Man out of the hatch, still several hundred feet above the ground.

"Did he just-" Steve began.

"HOLY FUCK!" Clint shouted, not letting go of the jet controls. "Nobody else jump out! I'm landing!" Clint's heart leapt into his throat at the sight of his (parachute less, still very human) teammate jumping from a perfectly good plane. The Hulk's bellow let them know that he landed safely. Likely he used his Hulkiness like a wrecking ball, crashing through a few levels of the base they were assaulting. Clint piloted to a safe drop distance to allow Steve and Natasha to disembark before parking the Quinjet near a decommissioned power line support tower. Clint climbed with the ease of years of practice and swung into a secure position to begin calling the battle.

The comms were buzzing with team chatter. Natasha and Steve called cleared rooms with steady efficiency. Iron Man had reached their mainframe and was locking down security features. Hulk was roaring at regular intervals with the occasional word thrown in. SHIELD agents broke in on the chatter occasionally with notes about setting the perimeter. Clint called movements of all rooftop and above-ground targets. He disabled two vehicles with arrows through tire walls and shot anybody not in the business of surrendering.

The Hulk soaked up bullets like a late-night infomercial washcloth replacement, pulling attention from the rest of the team. Iron Man locked all secure doors and after that it was a route. This wasn't precisely a research facility and it wasn't a base of military strength. It appeared to be more a stockpile of redundant equipment and personnel, contrary to SHIELD intel.

"Eyes on Hulk?" Steve asked on the comms. Negatives filtered in from everyone but Natasha.

"Widow, report." Cap ordered over the comm.

"Tasha, respond." Clint added after a pause, becoming desperate.

Clint had snuck out with Barney when they were in the circus together to see Jurassic Park. He loved the swooping panoramic shots, the magic of dinosaurs and humans interacting.... The first time the T-rex had roared, primal and terrifying, had stayed with Clint. The Hulk roared like that - like his voice alone can tear down walls and burst the hearts of his enemies. Like a lion. Like a bear. Like a T-rex. Like none of those. He couldn't pinpoint the exact location but the puff of cement dust towards the west wing of the compound was a good clue. Quick as that his bow was stowed over his back before the echoes had died.

"Hawkeye, maintain position." Clint has already begun climbing down from his nest. "Hawkeye!" Cap's voice was sharp in his ear.

"If you leave your position I will make sure you are benched for a month." Hill promised in his ear, all steady voice and controlled inflection. Clint stopped, left hand gripping white on the power line tower support. He growled and slammed his palm beside his head.

"Find her _now_." He growled into the comm. He rested his forehead against metal for a count of five, breathing deeply, and resettled in his nest. "Find her." He repeated almost a prayer.

"I'm in the section Widow was clearing. Continuing to West quarter." Cap reported. SHIELD agents had the area properly cordoned off and were leading HYDRA agents who hadn't suicided to vans for transport. Clint's breathing was harsh in his own ears and he'd largely given up on shooting or even tracking movement on the ground. "I found Widow. She's with Hulk." There was a long pause. "They're fine."

"Avengers, stand down." Hill said on the comms. Clint unstrung his bow and locked his quiver. His hands were shaking so much that he fumbled his way down the tower and nearly fell twice. He hit the ground and repositioned the Quinjet closer to the compound, within the cordon. Steve and Natasha were helping Bruce out of the ruins. Actually they were pretty much dragging him, his feet barely shuffling along with them. Steve looked... amused. Natasha looked him in the face and a flicker of muscles tensed around her eyes in her secret version of a reassuring smile. They loaded Bruce onto one of the padded benches, and blanketed him up. He was not unconscious but he was certainly worse for the fight. Natasha settled wearily on the gangway, coughed, and spit. Clint crouched in front of her, running his palms down her arms until they were grasping fingertips lightly.

"Jesus, Tasha. You scared the shit out of me." Clint said finally.

"I'm fine. Really." Her voice was rough from inhaling concrete dust. When she shook her head, a cloud of the stuff rose from her hair.

"What happened in there?”  
\--  
Clint shouldn't have gotten access to it, but JARVIS was his friend, and Stark programmed a frightening functionality into his AI, so he got the headset footage from Natasha's camera during the fight. He fast forwarded through the fighting, the dash through the halls, the choking dust obscuring a lot of the visual field. She took a blow to the head which was what knocks out the comm, but she continued unphased. He could tell the moment she went after Hulk - she stopped, cocked her head just slightly, and took off with a renewed focus.

She came on Hulk smashing his way through a data center, spittle flying as he looked for the source of bullets ricocheting off his green hide. Throwing aside a bank of hard drives Hulk found the HYDRA personnel and smashed them with brutal efficiency. Natasha probably shouted, got Hulk's attention, because he swiveled to her abruptly, ready to bellow his challenge.

And stopped.

Hulk snuffed a few times, scrunching up his face at her as though confused. Clint figured she was talking to him because he was quiet for a long beat. Hulk yelled something at Natasha who swayed back and around slightly but didn't give ground. Hulk smashed his fist into the already destroyed computer banks as though proving a point. Natasha held out her gloved hand, probably speaking again.

Hulk gave her a mistrustful look. And reached out to take it. The huge blunt fingers dwarfed Natasha's, but he laced them together carefully. She patted down the back of his hand with her other. He huffed a few more times, hard enough to raise more dust, but didn't pull away.

By the end of it, Natasha had Hulk's massive head resting in her lap and was carding her fingers through his hair. The view swiveled abruptly to see Steve rush in and stop.  
\--  
"Wait - what?"

Darcy had convinced Clint to come on a bar crawl with a bunch of microbrew fanatics off of yelp. Her eyes were huge and bright from beer and excitement, and her grin was that half-feral half-gleeful one that made him melt inside like pictures of kittens attacking cotton balls made him melt. But right then he couldn't melt. "What did you say?"

'Interview' and 'attaché' were all Clint had caught in between feeling kind of sappy and avoiding the enthusiastic waving of Darcy's beer stein.

"I got asked to interview as a SHIELD attaché to the Asgardian ambassador. I'm pretty sure Jane put a good word in for me but isn't that _crazy_? I could use my Poli Sci degree with _aliens_." The last was said in a not-so-quiet stage whisper.

"You got offered the attaché position to Asgard?" Clint asked. "That's huge!" He raised his own stein in sloppy cheers and leaned in for a kiss which was sloppy only because Darcy couldn't stop grinning. "Why didn't you tell me when I was sober?"

"Aaw." Darcy cupped one cheek and kissed the other. "There's an Asgard convoy coming for the interview and they're staying in the Tower."

"And?" Clint drawled. He had gotten the paperwork for extraterrestrial visitor approval earlier that day.

"And it's the Warriors Three - these are the guys who thought Thor's plans were top-shelf. AND the people who have been known to drink the Big Guy under the table." Darcy was the only person who referred to Thor, not Bruce, as the Big Guy.

Clint paled. "Are you serious?" He had seen Thor down his own keg during his first experience with a Stark Party. He then attempted to initiate all sorts of things which the lawyers had them agree they would never speak of again.

"That's why I didn't tell you when you were sober." She said, pleased with herself. A man crawling with them - Roger or Robert or something - grabbed Darcy's shoulder and shouted something about the next bar. Darcy circled her hand at Clint, a sign that he should finish his beer.  
\--  
Stark parties caused equal parts excited anticipation and anxious tension. Outside the Tower, Clint tried to turn off his 'head of security' mode, but he felt a certain ownership over any Avengers business and he felt it would reflect badly on him if one of his people was taken out during a society function. Darcy solved what she called his overblown sense of personal responsibility for events well beyond his control by feeding him girly whisky-laden beverages with a speed and acuity only possessed by recent college graduates.

The excited anticipation was because he had never gotten much opportunity to attend parties in a not-for-work manner, and whatever else could be said about Stark, he threw fabulous parties. Except for that one in Malibu.

"What is this?" Clint asked, squinting at the tumbler Darcy handed him. It was his fourth drink of the night. It was bright yellow except for a swirl of blue curling around the bottom of it, and a small armada of cherries jostling for space with the ice cubes.

"No questions. Sif agreed to face me in an Asgardian dueling game that Hogun promised wouldn't kill me, or even do any permanent damage."

"You're beautiful," he told her, nuzzling into her coiffed hair and managing not to spill anything on her.

"And you," she pulled back and pressed one beautifully manicured finger to his nose, "look like drunk James Bond. Don't think I won't take advantage of that later." She laced their fingers together and with a smile dragged him to the dance floor turned dueling grounds.

"If we cannot partake in friendly competitions, how would you expect to share trade agreements?" Thor had asked with sheer incredulity. "It is no celebration without tests of strength, skill, and cunning," he declared with authority. Thor had some very rigid thoughts about how parties should go, and nearly all of them had been implemented for this particular shindig.

The dueling methods ranged from the arcane (tug of rope on tree stumps) to the ultra-modern (laser pistols at ten paces). Sif's wide, predatory smile when she saw Darcy made Clint just a shade nervous. She waded towards Darcy through the sea of party guests. Sif stood almost a head above most of the guests, dark ponytail adorned with a glowing silver clasp swinging with each stride.

"Lady Darcy - you have honored our appointed time!" Sif clapped a hand on Darcy's shoulder.

“I love senseless drunken games of skill; I wouldn’t have missed this for anything,” Darcy replied, grinning wildly.

"I want her back in the same condition! I'd have to challenge you or something, if you hurt her, and I'm pretty sure you'd kick my ass."

Sif turned and bowed in the oddly formal Asgardian way. "No harm shall come to her, friend Hawk," she said gravely. "I know her combat experience is purely incidental and will engage in no activities in which our disparate physiologies might cause harm."

Clint saluted with his neon-colored drink and in spite of his intoxicated status, walked the perimeter in an old habit. 

Darcy and Sif were sitting cross-legged on the floor, Sif with a buckler reminiscent of Cap's shield, Darcy with a chainmail glove. Clint couldn't quite tell whether Darcy was trying to hit Sif in the face or the crotch, but they were both laughing.

When he returned to the dueling floor, Fandral had goaded Steve into a tug-of-war on the two tree stumps. Steve slipped on the stump's surface in his leather-soled dress shoes until - the cheater - he figured out he could hook his heels over the edge of the stump for leverage. Fandral and Steve strained and tugged, trying to unbalance the other into falling. Natasha was covertly taking bets. Steve somehow got Fandral to make a huge pulling effort and abruptly let go of the rope entirely. He nearly fell for his efforts, bending low to avoid being de-stumped. Fandral toppled backwards with a surprised yelp. Volstagg and Thor hauled him upright once more and when he was set on his feet, Fandral was laughing good-naturedly.

"I am surprised I'm saying this, and expecting to regret it when the EMT team finally gets some takers from these guys, but this was a good idea." Stark slung an arm around Clint's shoulder and plucked a cherry out of his drink. He chewed the cherry noisily. A happy, drunk Tony Stark was a handsy, grabby Tony Stark. Pointing happily at the fencing strip, "Look - they're totally going to duel." A man in a European-cut suit and someone in Air Force blues were in fencing jackets and helmets, and were saluting with epees. "I think that one is the US Secretary for Foreign Trade," Stark added pointing at the one in a suit.

"Have you ever had a guest die at one of your parties?" Clint asked curious.

"No," Stark answered immediately. "Yes..." He added after a moment of thought. "But that was a heart condition... thing." His hands pin wheeled and he worked something in his mouth a moment and stuck out his tongue, proudly displaying the knotted cherry stem. Clint rolled his eyes and Stark abruptly swept off.

Thor broke the hammer carnival game with a horrendous clang.

Clint realized, rather suddenly, that he had a genuine grin on his face.  
\--  
"Hey, Barton," Stark said in way of greeting. The styled curl of his hair made it appear that Stark was forever rushing to or from somewhere.

Clint raised an eyebrow.

"You want to go shoot some stuff with the Asgardians? I thought you might enjoy it - I have some new electromag-force rounds you will love."

The Warriors Three plus Sif had been busy the past several days, largely out of the Tower. When they were in Tower they tended to be destructive, hungry, and loud. He had avoided the common areas with his usual skill since their arrival while surreptitiously keeping an eye on their movements and contacts through the duct work and JARVIS.

Blowing shit up with Stark Tech was pretty awesome, though. Away from his home turf over which he was understandably protective, it might even be fun to get to know Thor's best buddies.

"Sure. Let me drop some stuff off and I'll be ready in fifteen."

Stark grinned his blinding PR grin which Clint was beginning to suspect was his "I'm actually happy" grin too, and clapped a hand on Clint's shoulder. "Motor pool in fifteen."

Clint swung by the offices to pass off some paperwork, and to the armory to pick up his gear. Bow, quiver, shooting-glove, armguard and combat vest slipped onto his person like the embrace of old friends. He might have been inclined to leave all the gear off until getting to wherever they were going to blow stuff up, but the Asgardian penchant for wearing their gear and weapons everywhere made him feel a bit naked when not similarly attired.

The Warriors Three and Sif were arrayed around the SUV when he got there, boasting and slapping shoulders and generally being boisterous. Volstagg was drinking from a massive can of Miller High Life and Fandral was stowing his sword in the trunk. Sif was smiling at something Volstagg had said and flipping a dagger between her palms.

Asgardians were big. Clint had grown used to Thor's... hugeness... but it felt like hanging out with a football team, standing amongst them. Clint knew he wasn't a big guy, but compared with them he felt almost hilariously outmatched. Sif smiled down at him, eyes dancing with mischief and a fierce danger. He mentally flashed to Darcy's nearly identical look and that bolstered him. He could do this - these Asgardians for whatever reason, wanted to like him. He could face them and be social. He returned his own only reserved smile.

"Brother Hawk - I was not aware you would join us on this sojourn." Sif offered her left hand to shake as her right carried the dagger still, and grasped forearm to forearm. Her bracers and his armguard clicked together.

"Is it by the behest of Tony Stark that you join us?" Fandral asked, taking his right arm in a similar greeting and smacking Clint's elbow with his free hand in an exuberant welcome.

"Nay," Hogun said with his unsettling little smile. "My prince had told us such tales of your skill with ranged arms that I made special request that you be invited that we might witness your prowess. The Lady Sif and I spoke much on this topic last evening."

"Indeed," Sif agreed. "The warriors of Asgard are mighty on land and sea, and even in the mystical realms, but the use of such armature is uncommon in our lands. I have some skill with knives but the bow is used for naught but hunting. The explosive projectiles described by the Lady Widow are intriguing."

Stark chose that moment to arrive with Happy as driver. "Saddle up kids!"

The SUV was like, the size of a bus, which was the only reason four warriors, Clint, and Stark fit in it with weapons and Happy driving. _Who named their kid 'Happy'?_ Clint wondered, not for the first time. He ended up in the back bench seat, sandwiched in between Sif and Hogun.

Hogun fell asleep, or into meditation or something, not long after they got out of New York City traffic, palms resting on his knees and breathing startlingly regular. Sif engaged him on a dizzying variety of subjects from armor materials and makeup to the political nature of troop deployments by SHIELD forces around the world. Much like Thor, he suspected, the Asgardians had a sharp mental acuity beneath at times childish exuberance. In the front seats Fandral, Volstagg, and Stark were exchanging stories of combative, sexual, and humorous natures.

The drive took them out of the city and into Pennsylvania through German-sounding town after German-sounding town and into the hills. The range was through a fence and a roadblock on the property of a closed anthracite mine. The land was more than a bit destroyed by the past mining activities but the range was, as everything Stark did, top notch.

Hogun roused as soon as they reached the range, and they were all trading good natured jibes and bets as they walked the long gravel length of the parking lot. A Stark Industries employee was waiting at the ordinance locker when they arrived, and tipped the bill of her hat to Stark as he walked up. A few large pieces were already set up on tripods or platforms, but all the smaller stuff was still sitting in the locker. Everything from handguns to assault rifles was neatly stacked along the walls, with lockers and lockers of ammunition neatly ordered beneath.

"One of everything." Stark said waving offhandedly.

"Don't give the Asgardians anything before I've shown them what's what." Clint told the woman with a meaningful look. She nodded with a knowing smile, and began handing him guns.

Clint wasn't opposed to guns. The bow was his weapon of choice for versatility and silence, but he was familiar with anything that ever fired a projectile. They started on handguns and relatively close range. The Asgardians adapted quickly to the idea, plugging their targets with low caliber rounds.

Stark had a few old-fashioned bolt-action rifles which Clint made good use of, taking shots at a hundred and two hundred meters with ease, adjusting the sights once before making bulls-eye after bulls-eye. The targets were just little red dots at that distance, and even Thor was squinting to see them.

Fandral and Volstagg made a bet and attempted similar shots to Clint but neither even hit the target, and they were left to argue as to which boulder ricochet was closer to the bull’s-eye. Stark played around with an M16, shooting at coffee mugs and pie plates set up around fifty meters. Thor was enthusiastically blanketing a small area with rounds from an M-4.

"Archer." Hogun said by way of greeting, "I have heard of your skill. Would you do us the honor of a demonstration?"

"Indeed!" Sif agreed, rolling to look up at him. She clutched an M-240 machine gun like a lover.

"What do you want?" Clint asked, handing his rifle to the ordinance officer.

Hogun shrugged eloquently, and Clint shrugged back. He snapped his bow into shape and gave it a few trying pulls before slinging his quiver over a shoulder. With a bow he felt calm, quiet, and in control. 

The pull of the string and heft on his shoulders and back was comfortably familiar and seemed to weight him into his body and into the soft loam under his feet. He warmed up his muscles at fifty and then a hundred meters. The shots thunked home in the bull’s-eyes, punching through the back of the butts at fifty meters. They did a bit of damage to his fletching but nothing that couldn't be soothed better with a few moments at his workbench.

Two hundred meters wasn't a challenge but four hundred was getting there. Without the advantage of height to get a bit of lift, his effective range with a bow petered out around 600 meters, so he took a few shots at that range knowing his accuracy would suffer. He'd never met anybody who could match him for range or accuracy, let alone both, so he was willing to take a few shots he knew probably wouldn't hit dead center.

Stark, looking at his shots through a scope, whistled in appreciation before passing the scope to Fandral so he could get a better look.

"I do not see the target at which you were aiming," Sif said, squinting into the distance. Clint tried to point it out to her but it proved a fruitless exercise without binoculars.

"Truly amazing." Hogun nodded decisively, dropping his binoculars. "Were we not allies I would forever live in fear of your skill."

"I'm not done yet," Clint said grinning. He turned to their Stark Industries shadow, "Can you get me an M-24 and a couple of boxes of .308's please?" She grinned and nodded. By the time she returned with the sniper rifle he had collapsed his bow back down and stowed the quiver. He checked over the rifle briefly and used the first magazine to adjust the scope. She handed Sif and Volstagg pairs of binoculars and peered through a scope off another M-24 so as not to miss anything.

He settled more comfortably on the ground, finally getting a look at his 600 meter shots. They were all in the butts, but they were up to a foot from the center. For the purpose of assassinations he would use a rifle on anything over 450 meters. At that distance the advantage a bow gave him was minimal and his accuracy began to suffer more than he liked. Silent, he aimed for his first arrow, breathing out and squeezing the trigger.

He did not miss rifle kick, and he was terribly grateful to the shock-absorbing material of his combat vest. Fandral cheered while Volstagg groaned - apparently Clint had settled some sort of bet. Checking through the scope Clint was gratified to see the dangling split shaft of his first arrow. He picked off the rest to Volstagg's increasingly distressed sounds. The world fell away during his moments of focus so he hadn't noticed the creep of Sif and Hogun towards him until he sat up and startled. They were crouched to either side of him, binoculars and scope trained towards his targets. Both were grinning.

"Amazing," Sif complimented him, steadying him with a hand on his arm when he startled at her nearness.

“Enough with the Robin Hood potshots - lets get some real destruction going,” Stark said with an excited smile. As much as he might protest that he didn’t manufacture weapons any more and that he found it morally repugnant, Clint strongly suspected he only found the horrible misapplication of those weapons to be morally repugnant. Iron Man was usually deployed strategically to use the least force for the most gain, but Stark dearly loved blowing some shit to hell.

“You promised me some electromag propelled rounds - gimmie.”  
\--  
The drive back was quieter but still exuberant. Clint was unaccountably tired and he nearly nodded off like Hogun on the gentle curve of country roads. They got back to the Tower as the sky darkened.

"Be ready for dinner at seven," Stark said doing the finger-eyes point at Volstagg.

"Aye, friend Stark!" Volstagg clapped Stark on the shoulder mightily and dragged Fandral off towards the elevator. Clint unloaded his gear and made to follow them.

"Your performance was truly impressive." Hogun stopped Clint with a hand on his arm. The Asgardians were a touchy feely people, if Thor and his friends were anything to go by. Clint tried not to flinch outwardly.

"Thank you," He said, glancing from Hogun's inscrutable, small smile to the hand. "Did you need something?" Clint wanted a shower and some quality time on the couch.

"Yes, actually. A rather personal matter to discuss. Is there a private area which you would prefer? I would offer my quarters but my compatriots are often boisterous and lacking in discretion."

Clint frowned. What could the Asgardian need to discuss with him?

"Perhaps your steam baths? I have found them a pleasant location for quiet reflection and _privacy_."

"Shower than sauna - that can work."

Hogun bowed his head in agreement and parted ways with Clint.

The pool level of the Tower had plush showers, a grotto hot tub and steaming waterfall, and a wet and dry sauna. Hogun was seated on one of the teak benches in the wet sauna in a position of meditation. The air was thick and hot. Moisture beaded on the window and the slats of the benches. Clint entered and lay on one of the benches with a sigh. The heat soaked gently through the wooden slats, relaxing his muscles, and the low light was soothing. He was curious what Hogun wanted to talk with him about but he could wait.

"In Asgard it is known I have skills as a warrior, but my abilities as a healer are those which I hold in the highest esteem," he said finally.

"You're a doctor?" Clint asked.

Hogun squinted, considering. "I am a healer. Asgardians and Midgardians suffer from afflictions of all types - not merely those of the body." He paused, considering how to continue. "Loki wronged you in the most grievous and intimate manner." At Loki's name, Clint felt a tremor of tension shiver through his muscles - the memory of hoarfrost crystals growing through his soul was once more bright in his memory. "My prince confided the concerns you bear: that you may still be under the Traitor's influence, or that he may once more gain access to your core of being." Hogun regarded him through nearly closed eyes. His torso was lithe and muscled, and shiny with intermingled sweat and steam. Thin scars wrapped across his skin - nicks and cuts from training. Longer, twisted scars from true combat littered his skin where armor was not sufficient to prevent injury. There was no pity or sympathy in his tone; merely a practical statement. That somehow made it easier.

Clint cleared his throat. "Yeah. That thought hasn't helped me sleep at night."

Hogun nodded. "I must beg your forgiveness in advance for a moderate incursion into your privacy in the course of my diagnosis."

"What?" It was a statement and a question; a demand for swift explanation.

"I have been monitoring your energetic patterns for traces of Loki's influence in a dormant state. I wanted to assure you that no trace of the Traitor's influence remained within you. The taste of his tainted magic is such that I do not believe he could hide it within a Midgardian beyond my view."

Clint scrubbed a hand through his hair, sweat sticking it up in spikes. "O-kay," he drawled. "I guess that's reassuring." Silence passed between them for a beat. "That doesn't do anything against him doing it again though." Hogun frowned and tilted his head to the side. "I guess he doesn't have the fancy scepter any more, but-"

"I do not believe he would be able to force your mind once more even were he in possession of that power once again." That stopped Clint talking well enough. "When put to the yolk, some bow and learn to bear it. Some struggle and worry at their bondage until they are raw and scarred. The Midgardian aptitude for psychic skills is limited but you struggled with such violence and tenacity that you did yourself permanent damage. The paths through your mind through which he accessed your will and thoughts are burnt and blocked. I doubt any psychic could access your mind, let alone control it, with the damage I have observed."

"Are you serious?" Clint asked, sitting upright.

Hogun looked grave. "Indeed."

"That's great!"

Hogun squinted, confused. "You have done yourself damage which may never be repaired." Hogun cleared his throat and looked uncomfortable. "It is not a thing I would celebrate."

"I wasn't using psychic powers anyways - knowing I can't be brain-puppeted again is way better than hypothetical psychic abilities," Clint replied.

"Your pragmatic outlook on this matter is fascinating," Hogun said after a beat.  
\--  
"Friend Hawk!" That was the only warning Clint had before the entire Asgardian gang was about him, clasping arms, slapping him on the shoulders and back, and grinning happily while all talking.

It was the day to take the Bifrost out of town and it appeared that they all wanted to say goodbye.

"You should join us in a Lindworm hunt - the beast would fall to your arrows like as not, and would it merely weaken it, why more's the sport for the rest of us!" Fandral declared.

"If you visit our capital you shall be feasted as you deserve," Volstagg added.

Clint laughed, actually feeling buoyant with their open enthusiasm. "I'm not sure what anybody would think about shipping an assassin through the Bifrost to our newest interstellar allies."

"Pshaw," Sif scoffed. "Our doors open to those we trust and you we might count among that number. You must remember to visit, for the lives of Midgardians are short and our capital is beauty beyond your imagining."

"Thanks." To Hogun, "Seriously, thanks." Hogun gave him a tiny bow. "I'll see what I can do about visiting." This seemed to satisfy them all and they bustled off in an obvious hurry, for their physics anomaly out of town.  
\--  
Darcy purred. She actually growled a rumbly sort of purr, deep in her chest, when she was really pleased with something. It was more than a bit predatory. She had her teeth in the thin skin under his jaw line - licking enthusiastically and biting just this side of hard enough to leave a mark. Clint felt helpless, which was not something he was used to feeling. Her enthusiastic wriggling had coaxed an erection from him and her tongue on the most vulnerable part of his neck was short-circuiting his normal thought process. He liked to think he sighed but it was probably more of a whimper.  
Darcy pulled back from him, the contented growl-purr declaring exactly how pleased with him she was. "You are one beautiful piece of man." Darcy said, fingers teasing at the third button of his shirt. Clint ducked his head, shy and a little bit annoyed. Darcy has stilled at the motion, her fingers tensed at his collar.

"That's nice of you to say, but-" he began, intending to end with "You don't need to say that," or, "I know I'm not a looker," or, "It's not nice to lie."

Darcy cut him off. "But you were already aware that the Adonis-like curve of your ass makes my panties wet at 90 yards?" It came out sharper than she probably intended, and Clint blanched. Darcy sighed and consciously unclenched her fingers from his collar. "Seriously. What?"

Clint ducked his head farther, eyes aimed behind her right shoulder. "Look - I know I'm not the eye candy half of the Terror Twins." He mumbled.

Darcy raised an eyebrow skeptically. "And for that I am glad because if you were I would have very different, much more lesbianish feelings towards you." She said, deadpan. Clint buried his face in her shoulder. "Are you trying to hide your hideous visage from me?" She teased him lightly.

"Yes." Clint mumbled to her shoulder, muffled.

"Why do you think you're so awful?"

Clint pulled back in a melodramatic flop, sprawling across the entire couch. "Do you want a point-by-point rundown?" he asked, flippant.

"Yeah," she challenged. "This is my man you're calling fugly." She said it with the barest hint of a laugh in her voice.

"Okay," he said, a little warm with anger and rising to the topic. He couldn't keep the hint of an anxious giggle out of his voice. "I've got a funny chin, and my nose is all bulbous, and my eyes are squinty and that makes my forehead all lumpy and I'm scarred up like I went a few rounds with a thresher and lost."

"Oh my god - you're serious. You're not even kidding a bit."

"Also my left ear got ripped off and stitched back on crooked." He said pointing at the tidbit of cartilage.

Darcy was laughing, helpless, guileless laughter. When did this go from awesome making out to making fun of Clint's lumpy potato face, he wondered sourly. He didn't throw Darcy off, but he stood abruptly and she rolled to the couch with a thump. Without another word he stalked out, bending once to pick up his boots.

Bruce ran into him on the prototype floor stomping towards his quarters.

"Hey," Bruce said mildly.

"What?" Clint asked, now feeling more tired and ridiculous than angry.

Bruce gave him a look that was a bit wary and a bit amused. Even at his snippiest, Clint had nothing on Stark, so he didn't worry about setting Bruce off. "Can we talk for a minute or... it can wait if now is a bad time."

Clint combed his fingers through his hair. "No, it's fine. Darcy and I just- it's fine."

"What happened?" Bruce asked, sitting him down on a helicopter flight seat in the little break area. He turned his back to fiddle with the kettle fixing tea.

"Don't you want to talk about your thing?"

"Mine can keep."

Bruce presented him with a mug that smells of warm spices and wet dishtowels, and sprawled across from Clint on a hammock sling chair made from military grade webbing.

"It's just... am I a handsome guy?" Clint said it with just enough gravity - just enough sharp interrogation and _scorn_ that Bruce took a moment to consider the question objectively.

"Are you asking me for a _reason_? Because Natasha is enough spice for any man's life." Clint shook his head 'no'. "Okay. Had to check." He polished his glasses on his shirt and scrutinized Clint thoroughly. Clint wouldn't meet his eyes and in that soft uncertainty, Bruce could see a buried vulnerability in the abrasive, brazenly defensive archer. "I can certainly see an appeal."

Clint drew back as though struck. Derision twisted his mouth, anger or petulance furrowing his brow. Between those reactions was the shyest, coyest bit of hope. "What." He stated more than asked.

"Okay, first thing - smile lines. They give you a... I don't know - a kind look."

"Those are from squinting at people I'm planning to kill."

"On the subject of eyes," Bruce continued, ignoring his protest, "That unfairly-long eyelash and piercing blue eyes combo is killer." Bruce waved his mug, "You have the ruggedly handsome thing going - like you got in a lot of bar fights-"

"-I did," Clint interrupted.

"-but won a lot of them. You've got a survivor's face. And a nice smile. And if you tell me you have some problem with your physique, I just won't believe you."

"Well... but-"

"But what?" Bruce asked. He had a knack for pinning Clint with this alien, bland, intent look. In those moments, Clint saw all the animal predator of the Hulk reflecting out of Bruce's eyes, and he wondered if Stark wasn't right; that the Hulk was just a sheared-off fragment of the very strange creature that was Bruce.

"I don't think of myself that way." Clint admitted finally.

"Well that doesn’t really matter, because Darcy does. She was actually worried you were out of her weight class." Bruce said it calmly.

"What? She's-" Clint made some surprisingly articulate hand gestures. "And she's gorgeous and funny and - wait, you guys talk?"

Bruce preened a bit. "We converse. Now I have the feeling you were just an ass to her about something."

Clint looked petulant. "Probably..."

Bruce drank his tea in a companionable silence while Clint stared at his toes feeling ugly and stupid. Remembering the start of their conversation, "Oh, hey, what did you want to talk about?"

"Natasha and I had a Talk the other day. About where she goes after she puts me into a sex-induced stupor."

Clint froze. He knew this talk was coming, but right now, after he opened up and spilled some guts out on Bruce he's not sure he could maintain the composure and aplomb this conversation might require. "...yeah?" Clint said finally, into the silence. He _could_ wait the scientist out, but he had the feeling that wouldn't do him any favors in the long run.

Bruce ducked his head and looked up at Clint through shaggy curls. Clint had learned this was somewhere between bashful, amused, and submissive, in Bruce. "I wish we all were normal, not emotionally scarred people, but we're not." Bruce said it like it's the intro to a lecture. "Quite honestly, it's probably not the best idea that I sleep in the same bed with another person yet. If she's not comfortable with it I can hardly blame her, because _I'm not_. And if she can't have a bit of comfort with me, I'm glad she can get it with you."

Clint continued to stare at Bruce, waiting for the other shoe to drop. After several minutes where Bruce did little more than fiddle with his mug, Clint asked, "Did you just give me your blessing to sleep with your girlfriend?"

 _That_ got a reaction. Green flashed oh-so-briefly in Bruce's eyes. "No. I gave you my blessing for platonic snuggling with Natasha." He said, still with a trace of humor but sharper.

"Oh. I can do that," Clint said. "We're champions of platonic."  
\--  
He was just walking by, really. It wasn't because he knew Natasha and Bruce had a date last night and she hadn't shown up at 3 AM for a sexcapades debrief, certainly. He was even quiet because it was early. Bruce opened the door just as he padded by, breath held, listening for sounds of distress. "Would you like to come in for coffee?" Bruce asked instead of any of a thousand more likely options.

Clint tried not to look guilty. "Sure."

Bruce's apartment looked like it did from security cameras, broken in and filled with the detritus of living. Bruce pulled out a mug ("It's not easy being green" and a picture of Kermit) from the cupboard and gestured to the percolator on the stovetop. The coffee was strong - Clint could feel the caffeine molecules burrowing through the thin skin of his tongue and gums.

"There's cream in the fridge and sugar over here." Bruce said, eyes crinkling just a bit in a mouth less smile.

"Oh thank God." Clint could and had pretended to be a badass and toss back black coffee. He could appreciate a cup of anything when on an assignment, but he preferred it sweet and creamy.

Bruce's eyebrows went up at how much sugar went into the cup - the coffee is noticeably more viscous. "How do you have teeth?" Bruce asked. Clint bared his teeth and snapped once, decisively. "Natasha is still asleep. Or probably asleep again - I'm not terribly stealthy."

"I wouldn't be offended. She's the lightest sleeper I know." Clint replied, licking a film of sugar. Bruce gave him one of his deeply scrutinizing looks, giving Clint the deeply uncomfortable feeling that he is looking down into Clint's cellular structure and deconstructing the biological base code.

"Is she aware she does it? When she's playing me?" Bruce asked him abruptly.

"Uh..." Clint replied, rummaging through the fridge for flavored creamer, pulling out a Christmas-themed egg nog coffemate. "I don't think she can help it," Clint added. Bruce was frowning, eyes far away. Clint recognized it as the 'is it me?' look. "She does it with everyone, even me. It's not a trust thing, it's just reflex." Clint wanted to say a lot of things. _I'm sorry. This is Weird. I just wanted to make sure everything was OK_ He wanted to say _I can see you're good for her in the way her spine relaxes_ and _you're the only man I've heard her speak fondly of_. He wanted to reassure Bruce that all of her trust issues weren't because of him.

"Is that the funnies?" He asked instead, indicating an already read-over portion of the Sunday paper. Bruce raised his eyebrow and nodded.

They passed nearly an hour trading pieces of the paper and drinking coffee like the gentlemen of leisure they weren't. When Natasha exited the bedroom she was wearing a bathrobe and an incredulous smile, and little else. She poured herself a cup of Bruce's hair-raising coffee and sipped happily.

"Sleep okay?" Bruce asked mildly.

"Well enough. I'm not so good at sleeping in new places but I'll get used to it." She kissed Bruce chastely on the lips.

"Are you checking up on me you big idiot?" She asked Clint, bumping temples with him fondly.

Clint shrugged, "Maybe. Yes." Feigning wistfulness, "I missed hearing about the sexy ayuervadic circus last night."

Bruce choked into his cup. "You tell him about us?" he asks once coffee was no longer actively flowing from his nose.

"Of course I do - he's my sassy girlfriend. I also tell my therapist and Coulson's," (her) "cat." Clint practically preened when she ran her nails down his scalp. Bruce looked between them, confused. "I don't think you mean 'Sassy girlfriend' like it actually means."

"I totally am." Clint insisted, looking fondly at Natasha. "She tells me all her girly stuff and I let her paint my toe nails. She's my bro when I need one of those."

"I take him out for beers, we hit on women; I get him out of bar brawls."

"Who's stupid enough to start a fight with Clint? I mean, you I can see them making a boneheaded mistake, but have they seen his arms?"

"Have you heard the mouth on this idiot? He could start a fight with a Hare Krishna." Natasha replied, settling on Clint's knee to read the International insert with him.

Bruce gave Clint another considering frown as though something important had just fallen into place. He rose to put another pot on. Bruce had seen first hand how he and Tony could get into it - vicious and cutting. Both men's acrid sense of humor and unexpected sore spots played off one another like kerosene and matches. Funny jibes between them ran to cruelty and outright assaults at the worst of times. Clint had never been anything but professional and understanding with Bruce - perhaps a bit detached, but that was mostly SHIELD training in how to deal with potentially unstable individuals. In that moment Clint realized the man he was was very different from the man he had been just six or eight months ago.

Clint and Natasha read an article together, each holding one side of the paper. Clint glanced at Bruce and saw a flash of unreadable emotion - a mixture of pain and revelation tinged with a sort of hopeful sweetness that was Bruce’s alone. Bruce had probably three professional acquaintances and Betty who quite simply was not spoken of. None of them (except perhaps Thor) were known for their cadres of close friends. Natasha was one of his only close friends in the world, and he was unsure if Bruce would fit into their little world. Bruce looked at them over his shoulder, a tolerant sort of smile embracing them both. Clint raised his eyebrows and Bruce seemed to realize that he had been staring at them with a hand on the coffee pot handle for quite some time.

Clint tensed the thigh Natasha was perched on, a silent request to rise. She stood and took command of the paper. Clint brought his mug to the sink, running water into it. "Thanks for the coffee," he said, meaning also _thanks for inviting me in to assuage my fears_ and _thanks for understanding 'us'_. "I should get back to walking the beat."

"I'll see you around." Bruce replied.

"Sparring at 11:30." Natasha added.

"Wouldn't miss it." Clint replied heading out to walk his rounds for the day.  
\--  
Clint tried not to be the team sap. Aside from the fact that those who don't know him all that well think that he's cracking up due to sublimated emotional stress from the Battle of New York, he has got a badass reputation to uphold. The ambassador was in his sixties, had a neatly trimmed beard and two doctorates. Clint hadn't spoken to him outside of security arrangements, but Natasha liked him.

"He doesn't take himself too seriously." She said, "And his Krav Magah is respectable for a civilian."

The ambassador was dressed in Asgardian robes of state, looking like a very wealthy renaissance fair player. Darcy was in a blue grey skirt-suit and Thor-red blouse. Clint saw Potts' influence in the cut of the jacket and pearl breastpin. They had said their goodbyes earlier so Clint was just here as morale support. Darcy looked like she was a moment from exploding out of her skin in excitement. The look she shot him was glee and 'I can't believe this is happening' and 'why me?'

Thor raised his hammer, which Clint secretly suspected was mostly for dramatic effect. Wind picked up on the balcony and storm clouds gathered. Electricity arced to hit the Tower's lightning rods, and then a deafening strike hit Thor himself, glowing through new imprints of runes on the tiles.

The outline of the party against the sky was burned into his eyes - red on black against the lids, and that was all that remained of the party. Bruce clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a sympathetic look, so he must have been a bit pathetic. Darcy had been the uncomplicated part of his day; his partner in petty crime. She was his accomplice in practical jokes, and she could take his dry sarcasm and run with it, turning a minor comment into a rambling joke which had him howling. She caught him in a thousand yard stare. Instead of ducking out of his sight line, she'd swoop in to jimmy him out of the mood.

"Will you do something for me while I'm gone?" she had asked him very seriously, foreheads resting together.

"You can always ask," Clint had replied.

Darcy rolled her eyes at him clearly un-amused. "Will you go talk with one of those psychologists?" She’d asked as though she was afraid to hear the response. She had asked as though she was grinding it out.

"I don't need-" he’d started.

"I know," she had cut him off, smoothing her hands down his arms. "But I know you don't have anyone to talk to who's not an Avenger." She joined their hands lacing together their fingers. "It would help me worry less if I knew you had some egghead you could go bitch at while I'm not around."

"I don't bitch," Clint had protested half-heartedly.

"No - you complain in a very manly manner," Darcy had agreed, doing the smile/frown that she only ever directed at him.

Clint blinked the memory and the final remnants of afterimage off, throwing a shaky smile at Bruce. "The fireworks are over?" he checked.

"Yeah - the Bifrost has done its thing. We're just cooling everything down."

"Good. I have a..." Bruce flapped his hands in the universal 'move along' gesture.

Clint made his way to his apartment via circuitous route which would have thrown off a SHIELD agent he himself had trained. He drew his curtains across his windows, fingers lingering to tuck the corners in, making sure there wasn't a sliver of the outside visible.

"JARVIS? Privacy lockout please. No recordings."

"Of course, Sir." JARVIS spoke quietly in his quarters by his request. He was fairly certain that if he asked JARVIS to speak in an Austrian accent, the AI would oblige.

"Can you get me the approved list of psychologists compiled by Ms. Potts."

"Certainly. Would you prefer print or electronic format?"

"Look through them and pick one. Route the number to my phone."

"Criterion, Sir?"

"Use your best judgment."

"Sir." JARVIS managed to sound frustrated. His phone dialed itself and began ringing. He took a big breath and he put it to his ear.  
\--  
Phil Coulson's memorial was a modest thing. His Captain America trading cards were framed in protective glass above a simple brass plaque on the hangar deck. The plaque was situated nearest the door they most often spilled out of on the way to the Quinjet. It featured a relief of the pattern of Captain America's shield overlain with a silhouette of Phil's favored style of sunglasses, and the text _Philip J. Coulson 1962-2012 He never lacked conviction_.

Clint would touch his draw fingers to the bull’s-eye of the shield as he ran to a mission. The habit was picked up by Natasha, sometimes with a kiss to her fingers, and then Bruce and Steve. Stark occasionally gave it a fist bump before firing up his repulsors. The first time Thor slapped it, the plaque embedded in the wall for a brief moment before falling off with a piece of concrete wall attached. The brass aged, letters standing out prominently, shield and glasses developing character. Slightly off-center on the shield there remained a shiny patch, well worn by the slap of fingertips and gloves in a silent reminder of what it meant to be an Avenger, and why they always fought to come home at the end of the day.


End file.
